For decades, a 75-year-old Queens man was able to con the art world into purchasing millions of dollars worth of worthless forgeries that he made in his garage using some old paint and a blow dryer.
According to the indictment, Pei Shen Qian was an artist selling his own paintings on a New York City street corner in the late 1980’s when he was discovered by co-defendant Jose Diaz.
Diaz paid Qian $200 for the first fake and eventually sold enough forgeries to pull in about $80 million between 1995 and 2011. During that time, Diaz’s brother, Jesus, and his girlfriend, Glafira Rosales, also became involved in the scheme.
Diaz apparently did much
Article source: http://gawker.com/how-a-painter-convinced-the-world-his-forgeries-were-re-1566372688