When I Paint His Masterpiece: The Beltracchis

and a husband has to carry their wife. Now, you can find these contests everywhere. They're like in Finland, Kazakhstan, anywhere you look, you know. But in America we do them proper. Okay. There's the North American wife carrying Championship you can find at the Sunday River Resort in newy Maine, like any wry newy okay, right, And they usually do it in the fall, and it involves people male female partnership when they're all leaf peeping. Yeah, so the exactly

out there like oh it's gouse the leaves. You don't want to do a championship run. So yeah, they basically just imagine a husband carrying his wife like fire like fireman over the shoulders, or like maybe like bear hug like you know, upside down, where like they're all s all sorts of weird ways, but however they can like clutch each other and then they run as fast and as hard as they can over three obstacles and hell and dale, Yeah, for two hundred and seventy eight yards

or whatever. And you can't drag her, No, no, you gotta its whole thing is the carrying in. That's the name. Yeah, I thought, ridiculous. That is very ridiculous. Do you know what else is ridiculous? No, hit me with it? Forging art while in jail for forging art? Wait, what this is? Ridiculous? Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Oh you damn right. Yes, I think I've

established that I like four things. Okay, I mean I like more than four things in life, but these are the main four dogs, which are the greatest living creatures on Earth. Trains, but not in like the knowing the model or history kind of way, pretending to not watch TV, especially the hit Fox TV show nine one one, and art crimes. Yes, those are four things I like. I don't have any cool dog stories today, and I haven't been on a train lately, and I'm all caught up

on the stories. OA, so that leaves art crime nice. You gotta fresh you for me, I do. I really liked telling you the tale of Elmer Dahorri Elmir. Excuse me. Oh, he was fantastic. There was something so compelling about someone who had talent, someone who life had totally put behind the eight ball, and someone who was so charming and who wanted more than anything to be loved and valued. Um,

and I loved hearing about his criminal escapades. Today. I have another Forger for you, right, he also has talent. He's also rather audacious and charming, but he's not as

charming as Elmir of course. Um. You know how if you look at an established artists Apple Music page, say, for example, Oasis, Okay, I don't know about theirs, though, they'll have like their essentials, which is like the greatest hitch and then then sometimes they'll have deep tracks, but they also have both influences and inspired by and so by the way. The inspired by collection for the band

is really good. Um. Anyway, if there wasn't inspired by Elmer Dahorri track list Wolfgang or I should say Wolfgang, I'll say Wolfgang. I'll americanize it Bell Tracky, he'd be right up there, okay. So Wolfgang Beltracky is an inspiration for almerda hard Well, he would he was inspired by Elmire. Oh I got it backwards. Why there you go? So Wolfgang Beltracky. He was born Wolfgang Fisher. Wolfgang Fisher picked up Bell Tracky along the way. Well, you'll find out

in Hexta, Germany. Sure, I am gonna like you say it like I know it. I'm butchering the hawkster with oh yeah, yes, so Hexta Hexta Yeah. In nineteen fifty one. His father was an artist. He was like a muralist. He restored church frescoes. He's like the German Diego Rivera. Yes so no, so Wolfgang Wolfie. He began painting when he was ten, and when he was fourteen he painted a piece copied from Pablo Picasso. After his father had to ten to do the exact same thing. Like his

dad tries copying it. This is what he said. I was fourteen and my father had given me a postcard. I was allowed to use my father's oil paints for the first time. I didn't like the original I thought it was too sad, so I changed it, omitting a piece of material and making the picture less monochromatic. The painting took an afternoon. My father didn't touch a brush

again for the next two years. Oh my god, can you imagine that moment where the father like walks into the room to see what he's done, and he's just like, never mind, and it just goes into sadly puts his brushes away. They get dusty for the next two years. That's just like wow. Right. So when he was seventeen, Wolfgang was expelled from high school and he'd quit art school in Akin after four years studying there. Sure, so

what do you do when you quit art school? Go to it T Tech where you can start learning to code. No no clothes, You buy yourself a Harley Davidson, and you become a nomadic hippie. Oh I like his choice. Huh. So he travels throughout Europe, smoking hash, dropping acid with US soldiers stationed at nearby NATO base on their way home from Vietnam, you know, as they would have stories. Where did he go as a nomad? Well, for a year and a half. He crashed on a Moroccan beach

and he lived in the commune Choices. Oh yeah, he lived in the commune in Spain. He lived in a houseboat in Amsterdam, and he ran a psychedelic light show at the Paradiso nightclub there. I think what we have established is is that under General Lisamo Francisco Franco Fascist, Spain was a great place to do drugs. Apparently everybody doing drugs in the seventies like, I gotta hit Spain. Yeah, anyway, going,

So he drifted around Barcelona, Paris, London. What did he do in all those places, Well, he bought and sold paintings. He founded antique markets, and his career as a forger was born in those markets. One day he noticed a wintry landscape painting of iced over as he saw that it sold for a lot of money. But he found that the ones with these kind of winter scenes made more if there were ice skaters in the painting. So with the Disney, He's like, are you know what you

need is some ice skaters? So he bought a set of paintings for two hundred and fifty dollars each by this unknown eighteenth century Dutch painter. He then painted ice skaters into the winter landscape and he resold them for a profit because like, ice skaters are big business or something apprently, so he sitsuing. Like then he starts buying these old wooden frames and he creates winter landscape paintings with ice skaters in them, sold as works by old masters.

So he like had this technique where he would put this stuff all over the painting and then scrape the old paint off and then you know, make his own thing. So by the eighties he really ramped up his forgery business. He painted in waves, as he called them, depending on whatever his needs were. Quote, sometimes I'd paint ten works in a month, and then I'd go for six months without doing any He's just yeah, he's take a little pieces of your retirement when you can get it. Exactly.

So in nineteen ninety two, Wolfgang meets Helene BELTRACKI, oh, there it is progressive. So they were each living with another partner when they met. Helene was with her longtime boyfriend. Wolfgang lived with his ex girlfriend and their four year old son. Okay, he met Helene because her boss was backing a project of his using money made from his forgeries. He bought an eighty foot sailboat and he hired a five man crew all for this project. What was the project?

He was gonna do some plane air paintings and this is something this would be right up your alley. He was writing and filming a documentary about pirates. Oh my god, I love this guy. He makes all the right choices. So he planned to sail around the world. He was going to go from Majorca to Madagascar, then to South America because he wanted to follow the career paths of all the pirates. Totally get into car. He was saying, I want to go from Sir Francis Drake to the

South China season. So he's doing every he's going. Yeah, he's covering the whole history. So Helene, she did not find Wolfgang to be all heba hoba at first. She wasn't into it. She thought he was a big mouth as what she called him. So Wolfgang, he organized a seminar series on sixteen millimeter film production as you do. Helene attended spent some time with him, her mind gets changed.

Wolfie goes from zero to hero. He is an artist. Now, this is what she said, quote, I saw that he was an absolute perfectionist, intelligent, educated, and a totally open social human being. So he just wins her over. By the end of the week, she has dumped her boyfriend and moved in with him. Wow, I like it. How's that pirate documentary going? And you know whatever? Not great? Yeah, I think it served as so exactly, So the film production it fell apart and the crew gets stranded in Maorca.

Wolfgang gave the boat away and and pay the crew. Wow, I like it exactly, he's loose. So a couple of days after they first got together, Helene saw the paintings that he had from all these famous artists, and she's curious about him. Here's how she tells it. Quote I asked him, are these actually real? And he said they're all mine? I made him. I said, so you're an art counterfeiter and he said, exactly, that's my work, that's my metier. Obviously she's cool with it. Why is she

cool with it? Who knows? So anyway, Helene and Wolfgang they get married in nineteen ninety three. Nine months later, they had a daughter named Franziska, and Wolfgang took Helene's last name, changing from Wolfgang Fisher to Wolfgang belt Truckey. Yes, it sounds cooler. It does sound cooler, and I'm imagining as an artist. He's like, listen to the Ring of back. Oh yeah, completely. So Helene, she wasn't just cool with the counterfeit paintings. She's like she wanted in on that lefe.

Oh yeah, she's angry. She was all about fraud life. So she reaches out to Lempert's major auction house in Cologne. She said that she had a painting for sale by the French cubist George Vamier and quote they sent their expert. She looked for a few minutes, said it was wonderful, and then asked how much do you want for it? So the lady bought it for twenty thousand Deutsche marks. Okay, And this is what Elaine said. The first time. It was like being in a movie. It was like it

had nothing to do with me. It was another person, an art dealer whom I was playing. Everybody with the movies, ye always with the movies of the movie. So she just roll places. Sorry, doesn't even ever do crime and think that they're in a play, you know, maybe pre movie. It was like a Eugeno Neal. I just felt like, well, so she's shocked at how easy this is. So she said quote normally a person would think that these experts would study the paintings and look for proof of its provenance.

The authenticator asked two or three questions. She was gone in ten minutes. It was super easy. A year later, that same forged Valnier sold at auction in New York for a million dollars. Well you know there it is. Yeah, Well, and their money easily parted. So nineteen ninety three, Helene debuted her Fletch Time collection. Wolfgang would paint in his studio while Helene, she had a sister named Jeannette, and then another accomplice named Otto schulteke ketting house I'm destroying.

I'm sure they organized the sale of the paintings. Wolfgang met Otto in a cafe. He introduced him to people as Count Otto. What a great name, of course. Wolfgang describes Otto as someone not really up on the art world and its history and such, but like a quick learner, okay, so he takes him under his wing. He learned about the forgery racket, totally on board. He's like count me in. So Helene and her sister they went to auction houses and they said that they inherited an art collection from

their father, Werner Yeagers. And according to them, Yeagers had been a client of Alfred fletch Time, the famous Jewish art gallery owner who lost his gallery to the Nazis. So keep it mind that the Nazis looted more than six hundred and fifty thousand works of art there. I it was like twenty percent of the art in Europe. Yeah, ridiculous. And there are more than one hundred thousand pieces that haven't been recovered or returned to the heirs of the owners.

So Wolfgang in Helene said that in order to save his works from the grubby clutches of the Nazis, flesh Time sold a bunch of the paintings to Yeager Helene's grandpa, who then hid them in the Cologne Mountains for the duration of World War Two. They had doctored photographs and forged documents to back and claim. So there were experts who also for a fee would back his staff. Experts can always be bought exactly, and the auction houses they were stoked to be able to get their hands on

all these old master works believed to time. So much like Elmer Dhri, Wolfgang didn't copy existing works. He painted quote in the style of designer impostor. It's harder to question right well, and then the way he came up with it is so genius. So the piece as he created were then said to be works that had been lost in the shuffle somewhere, whether missing pieces or one's not known about until then. He created titles and different motivation stories behind the creation of the piece in question.

This is what he said. Quote. Every philharmonic orchestra merely interprets the composer. My goal was to create new music by that composer. In doing so, I wanted to find the painter's creative center and become familiar with it, so that I could see through his eyes how his paintings came about, and of course see the new picture I was painting through his eyes before I even painted it. I wonder how that worked, you know, I mean, if you're really good as an artist, and because I can

only speak as like a film student. Or it's like you can eventually art to see how an editor would work, how they would cut this, or how a composer would score this, or I would director would want to move on this and follow that. You get that sense. But as an artist, it's such a two dimensional thing I'd

be willing to about. Not that it's easier, but I bet they could do that really well in that vision like a crazy feeling, you know, like as a writer, when I'm writing in the voice of a character created, like you get into it and all of a sudden you're that person. Yeah, it's just flowing through you. You You don't having to thank or you're in the what of

the flow state. But to have that two dimensional quality imagines being able to put on lenses like imaginary lenses, and also you can see the world like Picasso right and exactly so, like he would study the catalogs of existing works for artists, and he'd research their schools of practice. But then what he did that was so smart is that he looked at what was registered as having gone

missing during World War two. Brilliant and because of that, there usually weren't reference images for the paintings just like vague descriptions. So he's like, all right, well, you know, I wonder if he's also pulling through their notes, you know, like going into their diaries and trying to find them

talking about a thing. Oh, he did tons and tons of research on it, and when he found a piece of missing, missing piece of work, he would start painting it based on whatever written narrative there was for it, with knowledge of the artists uber So he's like any descriptions that other people had at the time writing about it. So he's just filling in the gaps, and he was good. The paintings were selling, the prices are going up and up. Here's what Wolfgang had to say about a max Ernst

painting that he did. Quote his widow, Dorothea Tanning, and artist in her own right, said that one of my forgeries was the most beautiful Max Ernst painting she had ever seen. The trick is to paint a picture that doesn't exist and yet that fits perfectly into an artist's body of work. So exactly like Elmer. When we get back from this break, I'll tell you other ways. Wolfgang's criminal enterprise was pretty much like Elmer's. We're back, hey, Hey, o,

Wolfgang Beltrackey. Yeah, he's making fake pieces by famous artists. He's using the Nazi theft of art from German Jews and others to make cover for himself. There were a lot of people who were duped by him, auction houses like Christie's and lem Parents. Art scholar Verner Spice. You're familiar with it. Oh, of course, I used to get the newsletter Experience Speaks were your favorite experienced art collectors

Reinhold Erth and Danielle Philipacchi the verse. Haven't called me since that, you know, the incident, but you know, I think that we could reconnect. I know, maybe therapy would be good, sit down talk therapy. Yeah. Um, actor Steve Martin, Banjoe Buddy Banjo Boys, Steve Martin. So, because it was nearly impossible to trace these pieces, experts, mediators, purchasers, they all got suspicious after a while. Remember Wolfgang and Helene.

They said that the pieces came from Helene's actual grandfather, who was a wealthy industrialist, Werner Yeagers. So they said that Yeagers had been friends with Alfred Flechteim in the nineteen twenties, and as we know, he's this German Jewish art dealer. They said that Yeagers bought the paintings from Flesh Time in order to save them from the Nazis. The story, though, had holes. So in the nineteen thirties, here's the big problem, Yeagers was actually a member of

the Nazi party. Well there is that he's not saving it from himself. Yeah, he trying to pull the hole, like I got pulled in, but I was trying to say he's dead. And he also had no interest in art in his life. It was completely doubtful that he even knew flextime. Okay, So when people tried to call him out on this, Volfgang and Helene, they pulled out all these old photographs what they said were from the twenties of Helene's grandmother, Josephine Yeagers, with the paintings in

question hanging on a wall in the background. They're like, look, we'll come to find out these photos are fake. So Helene would dress in period clothing and pose as her grandmother. Love it. Wolfgang used an old camera and like pre war developing paper to take these pictures. This is what he said. Quote. We were asked if perhaps there were some family photos in which the paintings could be seen. Well,

of course there were. I got myself an old camera on one of those big cardboard things from the nineteen twenties, as well as old film roles in larger's trays, whatever I could find at the flea market. So he's like, yeah, I can get you some pictures. They created fake labels that stated that the paintings were from sam Lung flex Time,

the flex Time collection. So with the success of this collection, the sisters did it again later with a second large art collection, the Knops collection, and that was also collections. Oh yeah, but they had to like have oh why we got this? So in this story, Knops was the grandfather of Auto, the other four germ count Auto. Yeah exactly. So Count Otto has this grand father, Knops, who also just dies ilected. His name is Count eight, you know.

So Otto inherited the art collection upon his grandfather's death. Well, where here we are, you know, more paintings. So the Beltrackeys made a lot of money from these forgeries, and they spent a lot of money. They spent seven million euros on this enormous villa in Freiburg, which is a town in southern Germany. If you're going to do it a villa, right, Well, it took nineteen months to restore

this villa after they bought it. And while they were having the restoration, they stayed in the penthouse suite of the Columbia Hotel for seven hundred euros a night. They're just ragging it up and their neighbors are like blown away by these spending habits. They traveled, They went on these shopping sprees. When the renovations on the villa were done,

they invited a hundred people to their housewarming party. And then you know, it wouldn't be a proper villa warming party without a four member flamenco band flown in from Granada to sing and dance for the guests. It's only problem. I mean, come on, I mean, come on doing this or do what? Are we animals? M So they're living large. But as is obvious from the fact that I'm telling you about them, it didn't last. Oh I was worried about this because you're telling me about them. It was

something small that took them down. Though. It was those fake labels that would be their undoing. Oh. Interesting, Well, experts were suspicious of their authenticity and considering the fact that they'd never seen labels such as these on any other artworks prior. Oh yeah, that's and well they didn't like copy a label, they made a new right, and so the labels didn't compare in quality to Fletch Times labels. UM. And they also, like those labels, had a custom stamp

that was very recognizable. It would have been worth it to them to buy an actual flex Time just to get the stamp and then be able to exactly for the amount of money that they're taken in. Yeah, if they're buying villas, you know, buy a flex Time. Yeah, well there was on their label. There's like a weird caricature of flex Time at Wolfgang Drew. And so in two thousand and eight, um Ralph Jens, who was an expert, UM, he did something no one had done before. He questioned

the labels. This is what he said, quote Fletch Time was a connoisseur, a collector, a man of taste. There is no way he would have permitted such a silly portrait. So it was just the caricature, Like this guy was serious. Why did he have like a good girl. That's like an observation. You're with your boy doctor doctor Bendor would know yes, oh my god, Bendor, and I don't remember his last Yeah, he's like an English art story expert. Yeah, oh my god, he's the best. But he has just

the best lines for his reasoning. Oh yeah, he would definitely do that with I don't believe it totally. So in two thousand and six, Wolfgang in Helene sold a nineteen fourteen painting supposedly by Heinrich Compendonk called Red Picture with Horses to a Maltese company, Tristeco, and Tristec commissioned to art historians to inspect the work. They're like, why

are there ice skaters in this picture? So they confirmed that some of the paint that was used didn't exist in nineteen Oh yeah, that's always a year it was supposedly made. Wolfgang had purchased a tube of paint in the Netherlands that contained titanium white and made mostly of titanium dioxide. It was still in development when they were, you know, saying that this painting was created. So Wolfgang he blamed his desire for convenience on this slip up quote.

I had always used a zinc white, which was completely normal. In Kampendoc's day. Yeah. Usually I mixed the paints myself, but I was missing some pigments, so I took a zinc white from a tube, a Dutch product, but unfortunately it didn't say that it contained a small amount of titanium white. In other words, the whole thing was discovered because of an incorrectly labeled tube. He's very facility. He just got lazy. I think you can point that finger

right back this way. So in twenty ten, the buyer painting filed a complaint with the District Court in Cologne in order to be reimbursed for the purchase price two point nine million euros. Yeah to hell, have a rebate, Yeah, a little chargeback on the card. Berlin State Criminal Police got word of the forgeries, they launched an investigation. Forensics discovered that the labels were made with a modern paper

to look old, and the glue was also modern. Zaren Yes, close you, Oh yeah, I want you to picture it closed. It's August twenty seven, twenty ten. You own Cologne, Germany's hottest restaurant, Zarin House. It's terribly posh. It's super small, known for our sculptures of salad. Zaren House. You recommend the crudo, or maybe the roasted duck with wild spice, strudel and beetroot. It's very good this time of yeah, exactly. You and the staff that you all wear patent leather jumpsuits.

By the way, we all like to look very good. And when we are seven fo it's your idea, No, it was their idea. So your greeting guests, as they approach the hostess to claim their reservations, incomes the Beltrackey family. The goods. They're regulars, like, hey, guys, they spend well, they eat well. They're two teenage kids. Manuel and Franziska are particularly adventurous eaters you've noted, so they enjoy this wonderful meal and all the exquisite wines that you've recommended.

They get up to leave and you walk with them. You're chatting about the weather and the plants that they have for this fall. You hold the door to the restaurant open for them as they file out. Just then you hear approaching sirens and the screeching of wheels. Five policemans, lights and sirens ablaze, come careening up to the curb. Police jump out, armed with automatic weapons and police dogs. The police order Wolfgang in Helene into a policeman. You

stand by a gog. Wolfgang tosses his car keys to Francesca. The teens look at you, but you've already headed back inside. I'm glad to go back because this is too much funny. You don't need the trouble. Basically, so the kids look at each other, they shrug, and they make their way home alone in the family car. This is what Franziska said. This is what the daughter said. We went back to the house and called a lawyer. I had no idea what this was about until I saw the news on

television and read it in the newspapers. Blissfully ignorant of this. Sorry, the television, I don't know. So Wolfgang in Helene. They were in custody for fourteen months between the time of their arrest and their trial in October of twenty eleven. In jail, Wolfgang painted portraits of fellow inmates, and he and Helene wrote to each other what they say were seven thousand to eight thousand pages in total, constant letter writing. And it was during this time that Helene was diagnosed

with breast cancer. So they're just going through all this stuff In September of twenty eleven, the group went on trial in Cologne, Germany. Wolfgang in Helene, Helene's sister Jeanette, and Otto count Otto about my man count eight. There were fourteen works of art that were confirmed as forgeries, okay, and those had earned them twenty one million dollars hot damn. And there were another thirty three pieces that were supposedly by all these other artists that Camp and Docmax Earnst

they're under investigation as well. Wolfgang loves an audience, so when he was called to the stand, he gave more of a soliloquy than a confession, because they've cut this deal. If you confess, then will reduce the sentence. So he regaled them with stories of his wild youth, and he went on. He went after the arrogance and greed of the art world. He also said the whole thing was quote great fun exactly. And then he did this post

trial interview with Vanity fair as you do. He said he was thrilled to share how he was able to like dash off these paintings that he would later sell for millions. Quote, I did in three or four hours, sometimes even faster. So he's just whipping these that's amazing, and it really kind of it's not an insult to the great masters, but it kind of puts into perspective

how long some of their stuff might have taken, you know. Well, and it's interesting because it's like they put all of this thought and development into it and then he just kind of swoops in after and it's like the table's already been set. Yeah, you know, he's just going to tinker around a little bit. It's just basically an artistic fax machine at that point. Pretty much. Now, when we get back from this break, I'm going to tell you how Wolfgang's inflated ego worked out for him in terms

of sentencing. Oh, Zaren Elizabeth, Welcome to my crime flop house. Dude. I'm really liking this ever since you left the crime Dojo and you got this new crime floppers I mean, everything's well, it's a lot dirtier. I gotta say, well, there, you're going to get scabies from sitting on that, so yeah, I'm pretty sure already have that. But I like you apparently a lot more time to yourself now that you're not cleaning all the time exactly. That's nice. I have

a busy on the go lifes. So October twenty eleven there was a forty day trial Wolfgang Beltrockey. He gets sentenced to six years, Helene gets sentenced to four. Both of these sentences were in open prisons. What does that mean. It meant that they went to work outside during the day and then check back in each night. So that's like beyond work furlough because they just did their thing. Yeah, so they're basically they just have to sleep in a prison. Yes, exactly,

it's like a hotel. They just have a really crappy hotel. That was their prison sentence. So they would like meet up at the studio in the morning, hang out work until it was time to get in separate cars, and then make their way back to prison. They would literally drive next to each other on the freeway and then one would have to get off in an exit and they'd wave to each other. Are you kidding me? I'm

not kidding you. Wow, Europeans approach to prison, I mean I wish we had this type of approach to prison for the non violent effects the world. Well, this is what the judge said. Quote to clear up any confusion, Mister Beltrocky has agreed to take back all his forgeries and return them to their owners, signed this time with his own name. Some slacks the right name on these things, so Wolfgang, Um, he agreed to paint only in his own name moving forward. No, wait with Steve, you said

Steve Martin was one of his victims. Yeah, did he come forward in this like, I don't know. I was wondering if he was like angry about it, because he seems a little prickly sometimes. Yeah, I know it doesn't he? Yeah? Yeah, God bless him. Um, So he said I can They told him you can only paint in your own name going forward, because it goes back to remember with elmir it was like, did you actually signed it? That's whole thing about a forgery is if you if you don't

sign it to deceive exactly. So it's the signature that makes the forgery. Um. And then he also had to move from Germany to France. They just like kicked him out of Germany. You're out of here, buddy, I mean, I bet you ran this by like this law about copyright law and having to put your name on a painting. If you ran that by a sovereign citizen, they probably lose their mind because it's all about the law and the name. Like, this is what happened? Man? Did they

take your name and that's your identity? You're like, oh, brother, this is great. Keep going. Oh my god, I love sovereigns like in the abstract. Sorry, so Bell Tracky right he um, oh, I forgot to tell you otto he got five years and Jeanette got a twenty one month suspended sentence. Oh so she doesn't even have to sleep in prison. No, she just has to wear like a cool bracelet. Um. So after he got out of prison, Bell Tracky admitted in all these interviews that he actually

forged maybe fifty different artists. He's like, there were a lot more, Buddy. I like how he just keeps wanting to flex something. But totally. He also just took me at ten minutes they had in ballpark. How many did you sell? He's like, I don't know, thousand, two thousands could be, but he wouldn't disclose the exact number or like the locations of This is what he said in an interview. He said, wouldn't it be the height of vanity if I were to tell you now where the

paintings could still be hanging. So I mean there's some still out there. Oh you know that in the Houston Museum. Three. The magazine says, this isn't exactly what one imagines as a full confession, Wolfgang, Wait a minute, I made a confession about the paintings that were the subject of the trial. Aside from that, if the police had asked me at the time, I would have told them where the paintings were,

at least as far as I knew. That's on the cops. Yeah, they missed the boat on that had me on the stand. So it was pretty much acknowledged that the galleries, the auction houses, they all turned a blind eye to pretty obvious clues. We keep hearing this, Oh well there. It wasn't just fake labels. They were misspelled names and like frames that didn't match the pictures that were supposed to be made out of the same wood. The money was

too good though for everyone involved. Well, I was just like a target print you get for a dorm room. They've been painted over. It was like one of those kids in the big hats, like holding a rose. So they could increase the value though tenfold, between buying from Helene and then selling it at auctions, so of course they're not going to pass it up. That's what I keep saying. This is what journalist Henrik van Spresshart said, a little more detective work at the right time could

have exposed the so called yagers and knops collections. But something in the art market seems to resist, almost hysterically, any discussion or disclosure ranks. They're like, how do you think we move all this money? Come on now, so Wolfgang he accused the galleries and the art houses of being consumed with quote greed and depravity in their mission to acquire these high dollar pieces. Per der Spiegel, German

news magazine, quote doubts are bad for business. A dealer who buys a painting for one hundred thousand euros but knows that he can sell it for two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand euros post doesn't want to ask too many questions about its origin. So you got from every angle everyone's pointing out like this is all big racket. We all know. As long as everyone gets their beak wet, no one cares, right, But you know, there were those who paid high non monetary costs thanks to the fraud

reputations were damaged. Oh so art scholar Andrea Ferminich of bon She was called to examine a supposed compendanc piece. Oh yes, it should be stated that Compendonk produced over twelve hundred works. Damn well, factory Compendonk. Yeah, there are so it's like really easy to say, like this could have been lost in the shuffle. But there were also two other experts who were called in to look at the same piece. This is what she said, quote no

expert is immune from mistakes. The damage to my person is so big that I'm not able to say anything quote official. The damage for the experts of art is so enormous, and the public understanding of BELTROCKI as a hero so absurd that I hope you can understand my opinion. Another one, your buddy Werner Spice. He was another casualty of it. He was referred to as one of the most influential art historians of the twentieth century. Sky was huge.

He was a friend to both Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso, and he was an expert on both of their catalogs of work. So Wolfgang comes along, DUP's Spice gets him to issue certificates of authenticity for five works that were supposedly by Ernst. One of the certificates was for the fake Lafouette Deum Spice put controversial Swiss art dealer Eve's Bouvier.

I mean, we all know about his kind in contact with Helene and so they sold the piece to a private company for two point three million dollars and the painting was then sold to New York publisher Daniel Philippacci for seven million. Wow. Yeah. In two thousand and four, Spice authentic hated an alleged Max Ernst painting tromblemndetail, and the painting was sold to a collector for more than

six hundred and fifty thousand euros. And then in May of twenty thirteen, Spice was convicted in order to payback that collector. Huh so. The decision, though, was overturned by the Court of Appeal of Versailles. They stated that Spies had quote expressed an opinion outside of the determined transaction unquote, and could not therefore be quote charged with a responsibility equivalent to that of an expert consulted in the context

of a sale. Quite understands that basically saying, in his professional capacity he was he wasn't doing as part of the actual sale itself. So the court said that a quote cannot be required of the author of a catalog Reisen to subject each work in a catalog published under his responsibility to the execution of a scientific expert assessment, which requires the removal of fragments of the work and

represents a significant cost. Okay, so they're basically saying he did go up to this this criteria, and no one expected them because he didn't say that. He didn't say I analyzed it right. And while he may have created this catalog reison, they for Ernst, Yeah, he just based on looking at it. How could he have known you'd actually have to like, that's how good. It's more of a curatorial catalog exactly. So Spicy ended up facing a civil lawsuit for certifying seven Max Ernst paintings. It turned

out to be faked. So rich people are suing him. Oh yeah, and it totally tarnished this reputation that he had built over more than half a century. In twenty fourteen, Wolfgang in Helene, they collected those letters that they'd sent each other and had them published into a book. Oh wow, So they did like a whole letters between Henry Miller and Annias and Inn and they also wrote an autobiography. Yeah, they're a little duly because of course I got to

write a book. It's what you do in prison, Elizabeth, you write books. But how look how fun it was until you got to like the people whose careers they Yeah, I know. This is the one thing is like, you know, meach as long as people aren't getting hurt by a crime. I don't crime, but people are getting hurt by this crime was like Sokom when these like rich people fall for it. But then yeah, at least yeah, well the exam.

I don't mind separating a fool from their money if it doesn't actually hurt the fool, right, true, I will, I will say that every time. So a documentary about the couple was made in twenty fourteen called Beltracky The Art of Forgery. It got a German Film Award for Best Documentary. It was by Arnip Birkenstock. No, his father Ryanhart Birkenstock, founder of the shoe company. No, it was

legal counsel for the Beltracky's. Wait a minute, so their lawyer's kid made a documentary and they were all wearing Burkey. It's not an easy documentary to track down, but thanks to my library card, and if you don't have one, I don't know what's wrong with you. I was able to watch it through Canopy, which is a nap or

canopy dot com. So in it, Wolfgang waxes about the Fauvis and how they went to the south of France and they painted things that no one had ever painted before, in a way that no one had painted, capturing light and the way people hadn't seen it. And so he talks about how much he would have loved to be there, as if it's only time that prevents him from doing something wholly new. You know, he's like, God, if I were there, I could have been one of these guys,

like seeing these modern takes on everything. Oh well, I can't go back in time, ally, buddy, look around right, how about you try it now? Hit a brand new moment right now, here's rom dos. He'll explain it to you. So he's really boastful about his skills. He said, quote, there's nothing I couldn't paint. I could paint anything. And then when he's asked about all the various old masters

and like classical artists, that he could replicate. He affirms each one listed to him, even quote, I could paint a new Leonardo. He calls him like simple, like oh Leonardo. So I like that after he took down his father as an artist, no artist was said anybody I'll take down You will take down your father. Well, the craziest part about the documentary is that the crew follows both Wolfgang and Helene as they spend the day in the studio and then buzz off back to jail in the evening.

That's how I got to see them driving next to each other. You actually got to see them do it. Yes, Why does he do in the studio all day? Pretty much what he was always doing. So he gets these old, mediocre paintings, he strips them down to the canvas, paints a forgery, ages it artificially, like there's one he gets this canvas from Barcelona, and he's like shoving lint and dust and dirt behind the canvas stretcher so that if

someone were to look down. He recreates taking those phony pictures from the twenties down to even creating a makeshift parlor for his wife to sit in, posing in front of the fakes. So I suppose he's doing that for the film crew, but it's like, this is what you're out of jail doing, like faking it up. So anyway, he goes to this dinner party and one of his friends said that he heard a rumor that Wolfgang had invested in quote ocular prosthetics in the United States. Ocular prosthetics.

It's a little too close to Baron Bruno right right on other ocular prosthetic is a glass of one of our old episodes. A little too close for comfort, I say. So. He paints portraits of other inmates when he's in jail, and they all seem to want him to learn to tattoo, and he declined. One of the when he's declining, there's a really uncomfortable moment when Wolfgang talks about how if he tattooed the guys that art collectors would want to take their skin when they die, worse than the banks.

We would take this wall. Wait, the dude that he's painting says, I'd make it into a lampshade. Oh, now, if you're German, you may want to be careful about that kind of ref more than may. So it's so uncomfortable. Anyway, what's Wolfgang doing Now, um, let's see he is in crypto coin. You're so close? Oh really? Well he does speaking engagement and then he creates work under his own name NFTs. Ah, I should have gone one step over

on the scams. I know. In twenty twenty one, he released a series of NFTs called The Greats, and he reimagined Leonardo da Vinci's Salvador Mundi in the style of other artists like Vincent van Gogh and Andy Warhol. That's interesting. So he does like a master work and then has

all the other master painters do this master work their way. Well, there's a promotional like an MTV kind of thing, kind of Yeah, there's a promotional video for it that says, quote, armed with over sixty years of experience, he is the only person who has the crucial knowledge and skills to pull this off. The armed. Yeah, he's armed and dangerous. They add that the NFTs will see him quote become part of history himself. Yeah. You love these hype things,

Like the people get paid to write these things. I just like I want to pat them on the back. Look at you, you you can paid nonsense. Now here's my takeaway. Sure, I like to cheer on the forgers, but I feel bad for the authentic. Yeah. And also, our researcher Andrea sent me a great Pablo Picasso quote. If the counterfeit were a good one, I should be delighted. I'd sit down straight away and sign it. Oh yes, I've heard yeah, which it makes me wonder what the artists themselves would

make of all this. I think Picasso, you know, yeah, like I'll take that joint. Zarin, what's your ridiculous takeaway? It's wild because like we've we've covered some of this, which is that you have like a painter like Picasso who is literally stealing his imagery from other works of art and other people just don't know about, which isn't

counterfeit because that's the whole inspiration aspect. So the fact that these other painters, like it's not that he's like lazy, because he's doing all kinds of work well, and it's like every kind of style. It's not even like oh I only do modernists or I only you know, he's

all over the place. But there's like one switch that just gets kicked over in the wrong direction and then all of a sudden he just does all of this stuff as opposed to like taking all this abundant talent, and as we talked about looking around the world and finding something, you know, commenting on that visually with his own visual language. He's right there and he's like, Nah, I'd rather be a jukebox machine of art and I'll just play this hint, I'll playing that hitt, and I'll

just keep putting my own buttons. Well. And we've talked about this before, the difference between like artists and artisan basically like are you a draftsman or are you an artist? So that's it. That's all I have. Volve's gang. I did like that he took his wife's name. That is pretty cool. Cool, Yeah, good for him. That's all I have for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime,

on both Twitter and Instagram. Email us if you'd like at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, download the iHeart app and leave us at talk back I double Dare you tune in next time? Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced and edited by Authenticator of Authenticators Dave Kusten. Research is by Angry art collector

Marissa Brown and Suspicious auctioneer Andrea song sharpened here. The theme song is by Thomas I Have Photographic Proof Lee and Travis urnst you glad I didn't paint it Dutton. Executive producers are Christie's auction House Experts put on administrative leave and Definitely and Bollen and Noll Brown. We decreas QUI so you one more time. We dequeus Crow. Ridiculous

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