Florida gallery owner charged with peddling fake art pieces

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A Florida gallery owner has been arrested on federal charges for peddling fake art pieces, claiming the cheap reproductions were in fact originals by Andy Warhol, Banksy, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat and others, federal prosecutors said.

A complaint filed in South Florida federal court Thursday accuses Palm Beach art dealer Daniel Elie Bouaziz of mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in his alleged scheme to sell forged copies of high-end art.

Bouaziz sold some of the forged art pieces for hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece, prosecutors said in a news release. An FBI criminal affidavit said undercover agents put $22 million down for several of the fake pieces. He operated two art galleries on Palm Beach's famed Worth Avenue, one of the wealthiest places in the U.S.

And even those were low. For example, an original Andy Warhol painting would likely sell for millions of dollars. Bouaziz, according to the FBI, sold one of Warhol's works called "Superman," of which there were several versions, for just $25,000.

 

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