Police in the Catalonia region, Spain, have dismantled a criminal ring that produced counterfeit Banksy prints, uncovering the operation through irregularities in Barcelona's art market.
The Catalonia regional police force Mossos d’Esquadra said on Thursday it had raided a workshop inside an apartment in the city of Zaragoza, where the forgers created the fake works before distributing them through auction rooms, antique shops or online platforms.
Investigators have seized nine works and recorded at least 25 sales to victims in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the United States and Scotland, the Mossos added in a statement. Four people are under investigation, charged with fraud and crimes against intellectual property
But a distributor “with knowledge of the functioning of the graphic work market”, in collaboration with an “interested distribution entity”, made fake certificates attributing the works to the secretive Banksy, whose identity has never been revealed.
But the company Pest Control, the only body that certifies Banksy’s oeuvre, found that both the artworks and certificates were false.
Main Image :a workshop where the works were made. Photograph: Mossos d'Esquadra
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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