Rome, Italy Reuters —Italian police have uncovered a large-scale pan-European forgery network making and selling fake artworks attributed to some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art including Banksy, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. The chief prosecutor of Pisa, Teresa Angela Camelio, said experts from the Banksy archive who assisted with the investigation considered Monday’s operation as “the biggest act of protection of Banksy’s work.”Some of the fake artworks displayed by the Carabinieri in Pisa, Italy. 02:42 - Source: CNNThey said their probe started in 2023 when they seized about 200 fake pieces from the collection of a businessman in Pisa including a copy of a drawing by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. That led them to forgeries sold by auction houses across Italy, and to connect them to a known group believed to specialize in forgeries of Banksy and Warhol. To boost their credentials, the unnamed suspects organized two Banksy exhibitions with a published catalog in prestigious locations in Mestre near Venice and Cortona in Tuscany, investigators said.

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Persons: Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Teresa Angela Camelio, ”, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dalí, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Amedeo Modigliani, Warhol Organizations: Italy Reuters, Carabinieri, Reuters, Reuters Pest Control, CNN Locations: Rome, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Pisa, Reuters Pest, Tuscany, Venice, Europe, Mestre, Cortona