Art Fraudster Who Sold Fakes For Over $80 Million Faces Up to 99 Years In Jail

Tom Burroughes

17 September 2013

In a story that will put a chill down the spine of investors in fine art and other collectibles, US art dealer Glafira Rosales has pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court to selling more than 60 fake works of modern art to two New York art galleries, amassing over $80 million from her victims.

The woman faces a maximum jail term of 99 years, according to a statement yesterday from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Rosales also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sell the fake works, conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and several tax crimes related to the fake art scheme. Rosales pled guilty before US District Court Judge Katherine P Failla, the FBI said.

“With her guilty plea today, Glafira Rosales acknowledges her role in a sprawling fraud that involved the commission of phony artworks she represented as real and her efforts to hide the proceeds of this massive scam in foreign bank accounts. Rosales’s plea shows that no matter how wide-ranging the deception, this office will continue to bring the perpetrators of fraud to justice,” Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said.

Rosales was an art dealer who, starting in 1994 and continuing through 2009, sold more than 60 never-before-exhibited and previously unknown works of art that she claimed were by the hand of some of the most famous artists of the 20th century, such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Robert Motherwell. She sold the works to two prominent Manhattan art galleries for approximately $33.2 million. The galleries, in turn, sold the works to victims of Rosales’ crime for more than $80 million, the statement said.

The works were fakes created by a painter who lived in Queens, New York. Rosales conspired with her long-time companion to procure and sell the works and to launder the proceeds of the fraud. The painter, who had received formal art training in New York, created the works, and in some cases, signed names such as those of Jackson Pollock.

The FBI said Rosales also filed tax returns that falsely and fraudulently tended to show that she had not kept all or substantially all of the proceeds from the sale of the works, when, in fact, Rosales kept several million dollars of the proceeds.

She received most of the proceeds from the sale of the works in a foreign bank account that she hid from and failed to report to the IRS.

Rosales, 57, of Sands Point, New York, pled guilty to nine counts, including: one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count of money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; three counts of filing false federal income tax returns, each of which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison; and two counts of willful failure to file Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, each of which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Rosales’ total maximum term of imprisonment is 99 years. She also agreed to forfeit $33.2 million, including her home in Sands Point, New York, and to pay restitution in an amount not to exceed $81 million.

Rosales will be sentenced by Judge Failla on March 18, 2014.