Bought A Fake Lately?

Would you pay £25,000 for this tripe, even if it were a genuine Miro? And would you expect to buy the real thing on eBay? Hundreds did! It appears that US and Spanish police mounted a joint operation to collar a gang of international fraudsters doing a roaring trade in fake Miros, Picassos, Dalis and Chagalls, some of them sold on eBay, others sold in galleries and at art shows. The forgeries - mostly copies of original limited-edition prints plus forged signatures and fake certificates of authenticity - were sold between July 1999 and October 2007. The US prosecutor claims that 2,500 counterfeit Alexander Calder prints were sold and that the gang raked in $5m. (A conservative estimate, I suspect.) Three of the seven charged are US art dealers. Hint from Coxsoft Art: you'll notice the gang didn't sell any fake Caravaggios. That's because even the most gormless art buyer might twig that Caravaggio didn't sign limited-edition prints! So stick with the old masters and avoid modern tripe.