Police Dismantle Ring Counterfeiting Picasso and Rembrandt Works in Germany and Switzerland

A large-scale operation has dismantled a criminal ring producing forgeries of works by Picasso, Rembrandt, and Rubens in Germany and Switzerland, Bavarian police announced in a statement on Friday.

The main suspect, a 77-year-old German man, is alleged to have attempted—with the aid of ten other accomplices—to sell twenty paintings, likely forgeries, by Flemish masters and artists such as Picasso, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, and Frida Kahlo. The asking prices for these works ranged from 400,000 euros ($464,000) to 130 million euros ($150 million).

Searches were conducted on October 15 in several cities in southern Germany, as well as in Berlin, Potsdam, five Swiss cantons, and Liechtenstein, Bavarian police detailed.

Police suspicions were first raised when the primary accused attempted to sell two paintings purported to be original Picassos, including a portrait of Dora Maar.

He also allegedly tried to find buyers for a copy of Rembrandt's famous painting "The Syndics of the Drapers' Guild," for a sum of $150 million. The original work—described as the Dutch master's last great group portrait—is part of the collection at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The copy, described as "likely from the 20th century," was in the possession of an 84-year-old Swiss woman, against whom German and Swiss authorities have also opened an investigation. The suspects are accused of attempting to convince potential buyers that their copy was the original and that the one in the Rijksmuseum was the forgery.

German police issued arrest warrants for the main suspect, as well as for a 74-year-old man from western Germany who was tasked with writing expert assessments intended to prove the works' authenticity. However, both men were subsequently released on bail.