A painting workshop and various sales outlets distributing fake works by the anonymous British street artist Banksy were discovered by Mossosd'Esquadra, the Catalan police, who reported four people for ongoing fraud and crimes against intellectual property.
The investigation, the Mossos report, began with the interception last July by investigators of the Central Historical Heritage Unit of graphic works attributed to Banksy sold on online platforms, auction houses and antique dealers.
After the first investigations carried out in August, with inspections of the works to prove their authenticity and traceability and ascertain their provenance, the investigators seized around ten new works, some of which had already been sold.
Through these, the main distributors were identified, who sold them in art shops, auction houses in Barcelona and on renowned web pages for the sale of graphic works.
In December, investigations made it possible to trace the laboratory: an apartment in the city of Zaragoza, where a couple of young fans of the artist, short of money, created the fake cartoons, finished with drawings and graphic stamps, which they credited as having been created by the artist in part of the Dismaland project, and then resell them for 80 euros each thanks to a distributor who is an expert in the market.
After having verified with the Pest Control company - the only body authorized to attribute Banksy graffiti - that they were fakes and reproductions, the investigators reconstructed the entire network and documented 25 sales to victims of the scam in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the United States and Scotland, you can even pay 1,500 euros for a carton.
The works were advertised as coming from the Dismaland event, the attraction park created by Bansky in Somerset, England, between August and September 2015, where urban legend has it that the anonymous graffiti artist, the most famous in the world, hid some works, so that visitors can find them.
Hence the ploy of selling fake Banksys accompanied by receipts for entry tickets to Dismaland.
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