When a forgery is passed off as the real thing there are fortunes to be made and lost. For nearly a decade two Englishmen did just that. Between them they produced hundreds of modern masterpieces and plundered major art archives to fake their provenance. Their activities literally changed our history. It was one of the greatest frauds the art world has ever seen. Art of the Heist s1e4: The Forger and the Conman
John Myatt had been to art school but this was the start of a new career. ibid.
Drewe became a lucrative client and Myatt began to like him. ibid.
John Myatt had allowed himself to be trapped by John Drewe. ibid.
Drewe was presenting himself as a patron of the arts. ibid.
How many other fakes were there? And by how many artists? ibid.
As many as two hundred of them were now in circulation. ibid.
John Myatt finally decided he had had enough. ibid.
The eight years of frauds and fakes was about to come to an end. ibid.
John Myatt pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison. John Drewe maintained his innocence throughout but was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. ibid.
Of the 200 or so Myatt fakes only 72 have ever been found. ibid.
Tourists are the number one target … The change that I got from my taxi is fake money. Scam City s1e1: Buenos Aires, National Geographic 2012
A problem is counterfeit money … This fake money is everywhere I turn. ibid.
‘Why would you have Michael Jackson as your best man?’ Reputations s9e3: Uri Geller, critic, BBC 2002
It’s 30 years since Uri Geller captured the attention of the media by bending a fork on British television … He claimed to do it using the power of his mind. ibid.
He walked out of the studio during his first ever television appearance when his supernatural powers failed him. ibid.
By 1971 Geller’s showbiz career in Israel had collapsed. ibid.
James Randi: duplicated everything that Geller had done. ibid.
‘He was so bad that I was embarrassed for him … Everything that he tried failed.’ ibid. witness of Geller’s appearance on Carson’s TV show
‘A simple bent key changed the world.’ ibid. Geller
You’re not a fake. You’re a genuine idiot. North by Northwest 1959 starring Cary Grant & Eva Marie Saint & James Mason & Jessie Royce Landis & Leo G Carroll & Josephone Hutchinson & Philip Ober & Martin Landau & Adam Willims & Edwart Platt et al, director Alfred Hitchcock, woman at art auction
It was a murder that sent shockwaves around the world. Just weeks after the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury another apparent attack on foreign soil. But a day later Arkady Babchenko was back from the dead … the Fake Murder. Panorama: The Fake Murder that Fooled the World, BBC 2018
Babchenko is a Russian journalist. He fled Moscow last year after receiving death threats. And got a job with a Ukrainian TV station. ibid.
SBU agents had arranged a make-up artist to help stage the murder scene. ibid.
Why had a self-styled truth-teller agreed to play the starring role in a fake news story? ibid.
Christmas buyers beware: the new scams fleecing millions from unsuspecting customers. And the sophisticated frauds catching us out. But would you be able to spot them? Tonight: Christmas Buyers Beware, ITV
Around 10% of toys coming into the UK are fake. ibid.
You can see how the branches of the vines are all twisting, tortuous. It’s very traditional … It’s phantasmagoric. Sour Grapes, Laurent Ponsot, winemaker, 2016
I guess the auction scene really started in the ’90s in the dot-com boom. Everybody was making money. They developed this culture of very wealthy collectors gathering at these auctions to be see and be seen, to be seen bidding. And the prices really started to escalate. ibid. Jay McInerney, wine writer
2000 or early 2001: we were doing auctions and I started being aware of you know skinny, geeky guy that liked wine. ibid. Maureen Downey, wine consultant
Rudy Kurniawan inhabits a high-rolling club of wine fanatics to whom money’s no object. Young and hip, he’s upped the wine ante. ibid. Corie Brown, Times staff writer
Between 2003 and 2006 John Kapon sells more than $35 million of wine from Rudy’s cellar. ibid. caption
Everything with this fellow kept coming up fake. ibid. investigator
In 2011, Bill Koch’s lawyers interviewed Rudy about counterfeit bottles Koch had bought from another collector. The bottles had originated from Rudy’s cellar. ibid. caption
There was everything you would need to make fake wine. ibid. FBI raid Rudy’s house
Rudy is charged and taken to a detention centre in New York City. Deemed a flight risk, he is not given bail. ibid. caption
Who backed it? Where did this money come from? Who created it? ibid. investigator
No-one wants to be fooled. People are fooled by art much more than we know. The director at the Metropolitan museum was once asked, How many fakes do you think could possibly be on the walls? To which he responded, I have no idea. It’s embarrassing. Worse than that, I think, is that they don’t want to own up. Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art, Freedman, Netflix 2021
‘I Am the Central Victim’: Art Dealer Ann Freedman on Selling $63 Million in Fake Paintings. ibid. online article James Panero 27th August 2013
It started with the news of Knoedler closing. And that was shocking because Knoedler was a very old-guard institution in the art world. And nobody really knew the details of that until you know, news started leaking out about this forgery scandal. ibid. M H Miler, The New York Times
A con that went on for nearly twenty years. ibid. Patricia Cohen, The New York Times
None of the works Rosales brought to the gallery were in the catalogues raisonnés of the artists. ibid. Luke Nikas, Freeman’s lawyer
‘A 75-year-old artist [Pei-Shen Qian] who went from selling his paintings for a couple of hundred dollars to selling them for millions.’ ibid. television presenter
‘I firmly refute the accusations that I misled anyone concerning this transaction. I believed in the authenticity of the Pollock at the time [of sale] and continue to do so.’ ibid. Ann Freedman, The Financial Times 9 December 2011
The calm of Salt Lake City Utah was rocked today by two booby-trap bombs that left two people dead. Murder Among the Mormons I, newscaster, Netflix 2021
A morning that brought fear and death. The first explosion ripped through a downtown office building, killing one man. The second explosion outside a holiday home claimed another life. ibid.
There was dark talk involving religious documents, hired professional killers … ibid.
The bombing’s impact has drawn the Church into an uncomfortable spotlight: Murder among the Mormons. ibid.
Salt Lake City 1980: At that time I was introduced to Mark Hofmann. And I was very excited to meet Mark. He was in the Mormon document world, he was a rock star. ibid. Shannon Flynn, rare document dealer
The Anthon Transcript discovery was widely publicised and brought Mark Hofmann into contact with top leaders in the Mormon Church. ibid. reporter
I’d never seen anybody come up with the material that Mark was coming up with. ibid. Brent Ashworth, historical document collector
He takes out from his briefcase the Salamander letter. ibid. Flynn
It just changed everything. Instead of God and angels, now it’s salamanders and magic. ibid. Sandra Tannner
The McLellin Collection was potentially devastating. ibid. Flynn
Last year Hofmann sold a document known as the White Salamander letter to the men who were the apparent targets of the first attack. Murder Among the Mormons II
For more than three hours officers sifted through boxes and collected evidence they hope to use in their case against Hofmann. ibid. news
The FBI has reportedly concluded there is no reason to believe the Salamander letter is a phony. ibid.
Every single document that Hofmann had handled had that cracked ink. ibid. document verification dude