Art Fraud: Criminals thrive on the Internet selling Forgeries and Counterfeit art to unsuspecting victims. How to identify the modus operandi of Criminals who sell forgeries and counterfeits by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.

Art Crime has found an environment where it thrives on the Internet. Millions of dollars of Forgeries and Counterfeit artworks have been sold on the Internet. Techniques exist that can help the layman to avoid being defrauded. Public libraries have books that are helpful in matching well documented paper type and size and identifying the appropriate watermarks in the paper. Avoiding private auctions is also critical. Criminals hide their identity and feedback in order to avoid a sales environment where experts can warn their unsuspecting victims.

Any one who would buy an expensive piece of art on the internet and pay for it without examanation has got it coming to him. I always make sure I can examine large purchases before paying.

Actually your are right and wrong. Nobody has fraud coming to them. However you are correct about examination of the artwork being critical for presale due diligence. Examination entails asking the seller for more information such as close up pictures and pictures out of the frame. Unfortunately, most people do not ask this and most sellers will not unframe the arwork. Some of the most crafty criminals on the Internet have high feedback even as high as 100%. Nevertheless, their entire inventory is often all composed of forgeries. These criminals continue to do business by giving refunds to the smart people who discover the artwork is fraudulent later upon examination. The criminal's business model is based on profiting illegally from the high percentage of their unsuspecting clientele who do not inspect the artwork out of the frame or seek a second opinion from a disinterested third party.
Regards,
Laurent Ashton Siegel

Thank you, Mr Siegel, for your insightful comments above. In the last 12 hrs or so I have taken a crash course in forgeries as a result of my suspicions related to a purchase of an limited edition print by a recently deceased Canadian artist. I consider the incident a $31 fee for an introductory course in fakery. I was concerned when the seller of a Norval Morrisseau did not offer any authentification for his offerings (COA, provenance, the photos described above) in the original sale or a subsequent offer for two more "numbered" Morrisseau prints at the same price. He may have believed he had found in me a money tree. You might be interested in this site: http://www.goldiproductions.com/canada_site/art/art10_morrisseau2_fake.html Bottom line: "if it (an eBay purchase) seems too good to be true, it is!" Cheers!

Thank you, Mame, for your comments. We all have a few battle scars from the arena of the fine art Internet marketplace. Deals that are too good to be true are in fact out there, but one should resist impulse buying. Many great prices can be found at live auctions from smaller regional auction houses that coordinate true estate liquidations. As always, the best course of action is to perform as much due diligence as possible prior to bidding by: interacting with professionals, seeking comparable sales analysis, gathering high resolution photographs, knowing the seller's true identity, utilizing a third party payment medium i.e., Paypal via credit card, and most importantly, avoiding the ever dreaded and insidious private auction.
Sincerely,
Laurent Ashton Siegel