A British crook was given a six-year jail sentence by a London court on February 15th 1999 on charges of selling some 200 fakes, notably works allegedly by Alberto Giacometti and Marc Chagall, through prestigious auction houses such as Christie's and Sotheby's. John Drew, 50, had used the services of a penniless painter, who was sentenced to one year imprisonment, to whom he had asked to produce copies of modern masters.
Posing as an art historian he then sold back these paintings as genuine with forged certificates after he had managed to add them in the official archive books of the Tate gallery, the Modern Art Museum and the Victoria & Albert to which he had had access.
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