An international art forgery network operating in the Walloon Brabant province has been uncovered. Over 2,000 fake artworks have been seized, including imitations of paintings by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.
The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) has confirmed that the seized artworks represent a potential loss of €200 million to the counterfeit network, which was operating in Belgium, Spain, France and Italy.
Since March 2023, Belgian, Spanish, French and Italian judicial authorities have jointly investigated the criminal network. Eurojust noted on Monday that the cross-border investigation was an "unprecedented operation", which began when Italian authorities found around 200 fake works of art during a search order against an entrepreneur.
In Belgium, the investigation was led by the judicial authorities of Walloon Brabant. Police operations were conducted by La Mazerine police zone, covering the communes of La Hulpe, Lasne, and Rixensart.
Network of forgers and complicit auctioneers
Investigators found that there was a network of forgers operating in Spain, France and Belgium, who were then collaborating with several complicit auction houses in Italy to sell the pieces.
To ensure the credibility of the auctions, exhibitions were organised across Italy, and a catalogue of the artworks was published.
Raids led to the discovery of forgery workshops and the seizure of 1,000 fake artworks, and more than 500 counterfeit certificates and authenticity stamps. In total, after an 18-month-long investigation, over 2,000 works have been seized.
Credit: Eurojust
Among the seized artworks were forgeries of works by artists such as Banksy, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Salvador Dalí.
The investigation resulted in the indictment of 38 suspects involved in the forgery network.
"By preventing these artworks from entering the market, authorities have averted a major disruption in the art auction sector," Eurojust said on Monday.
Eurojust is based in The Hague in the Netherlands. It is a network which allows national judicial authorities both within and outside the EU to work together to fight organised cross-border crime.
