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Bavarian police have seized millions of euros worth of forged art claiming to show works by Picasso, Rembrandt and Kahlo in an operation spanning Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Authorities in Bavaria said the main suspect is a 77-year-old German man who, along with 10 alleged accomplices, is facing charges of conspiracy and fraud.
Investigators first became suspicious when the septuagenarian ringleader attempted to sell two supposedly original paintings by Picasso on the art market.
He then wanted to sell De Staalmeesters, a famous oil painting by Dutch old master Rembrandt, for 120 million Swiss francs (£113m) – despite the original hanging in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (BLKA) said the forged De Staalmeesters – which is sometimes referred to as the Masters of the Clothmakers’ Guild – was owned by an 84-year-old Swiss woman.
She is now being investigated by the Amberg public prosecutor’s office, the BLKA and Swiss authorities after the forged piece was confiscated in Switzerland.
At the time, after being examined by an art expert, the police said: “It was, as suspected, a copy and not a lost masterpiece by Rembrandt van Rijn.”
The painting was seized during a co-ordinated series of dawn raids across Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein on Wednesday 15 October.
During the searches, a large number of suspected art forgeries were found and seized, the BLKA said, along with “documents, records, mobile phones, storage media and cloud data”.
Bavarian police said the main suspect attempted to sell a further 19 counterfeit works, purportedly by world-famous artists for between €400,000 (£349,000) and €14m (£12.2m).
They included copies of work by Mexican painter Frida Kahlo as well as Flemish old master Peter Paul Rubens, Italian sculptor Amedeo Modigliani and Spain’s Joan Miró.
He was assisted by 74-year-old German man who “prepared expert reports specifically to confirm the authenticity of the artworks”.
The BLKA said that he and the main suspect were arrested on the day of the raids before being conditionally released.
The police said that the investigation is in progress.
“Among other things, all confiscated paintings will be examined in detail by experts and appraisers in the coming weeks,” police said.
