German police bust gang that offered forged Picassos, Rembrandts

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BERLIN (Reuters) -German police said they broke up a painting forgery ring that allegedly asked millions for canvases they claimed were by masters including Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt, including a painting that had hung in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum for decades.

Police last week arrested and then conditionally released the alleged ringleader, a 77-year-old from southwestern Germany, they said on Friday. He and 10 accomplices face charges of organised conspiracy to commit fraud with forged artworks.

In synchronised dawn raids on Wednesday, October 15, police descended on premises across Germany and Switzerland and seized documents, mobile phones and multiple suspected art forgeries, police in Bavaria, who led the operation, said in a statement.

Police first caught on to the group’s activities when the main suspect offered for sale two supposedly original Picassos, including one purporting to be of photographer and activist Dora Maar, Picasso’s long-time muse and partner.

Further investigations found he was also asking 120 million Swiss francs ($151 million) for a forged copy of Rembrandt’s 1662 De Staalmeesters, or The Sampling Officials, a stern collective portrait that has hung in the Rijksmuseum since 1885, according to police.

The painting was in the possession of an 84-year-old Swiss woman, who was also under investigation, police said. The suspected fraudsters claimed that the canvas hanging in Amsterdam was a copy.

The group had offered at least 19 other forgeries for sale, including works purportedly by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Joan Miro, Amedeo Modigliani and Frida Kahlo, for which they were asking prices between 400,000 and 14 million euros, police said.

Police said they did not yet know if any painting was actually sold.

($1 = 0.7931 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Alex Richardson)