The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World
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Radcliffe’s team quickly came back with its findings: the paintings submitted by Lloyds were indeed stolen, and they were taken from the home of Michael Bakwin in 1978. This wasn’t the ALR’s first encounter with Bakwin: in the early 1990s, a Cézanne similar to the one stolen from Bakwin was put up for auction, and while performing its due diligence, the ALR contacted him to ensure that they had not come upon his Bouilloire et Fruits. But now, in 1999, it was certain that Bakwin’s Cézanne and his other paintings were on the market.
Radcliffe asked his associates to put him in touch with the man seeking insurance on the paintings that were awaiting transport, and then notified the FBI and British authorities. Next, the ALR contacted Michael Bakwin to advise him of this much stronger lead. Seeing an opportunity to recover his beloved paintings, Bakwin entered into what Radcliffe described as a “standard recovery contract” and chose to pay the ALR on a contingency basis. The ALR didn’t come cheap: the contingency plan called for Bakwin to pay the firm 15 percent of the first $75,000 of value of the art plus 10 percent of any value above that figure. Such an agreement would mean, for instance, that if the ALR returned, say, just $1 million worth of art to Bakwin, he would in turn owe the ALR $103,750. This, of course, far exceeded the $25,000 reward Bakwin had offered for a brief period shortly after the theft more than 20 years earlier. But he figured the gambit was worth it.
With a signed agreement in hand, the ALR went right to work. ALR contacted Scotland Yard, but because it didn’t appear that a crime had occurred on British soil, they referred the ALR to the FBI. After being briefed on what the ALR had found to date, the bureau recommended that they try to learn more about the individual who sought to insure the stolen paintings through Lloyds. Lloyds obliged and provided the ALR with the individual’s identity: Tony Westbrook. Soon enough, Radcliffe and a trusted deputy, Sarah Jackson, arranged to meet with Westbrook near the offices of Lloyds.
The trio sat in the London restaurant, discussing the art in question, where Westbrook revealed that he had been asked to sell the paintings in question and thus sought to bring them to London from Russia to have them appraised. Westbrook provided Radcliffe and Jackson with an odd story as to how he became involved with the paintings—he had registered in a hotel listing himself as an “architect,” which was somehow translated to mean “art expert,” and based on this, he alleged, he was asked to help with the sale of highly valuable paintings.
Radcliffe informed Westbrook that the paintings were run through the ALR database and determined to be stolen. This led to a series of meetings and telephone conversations between the parties. Westbrook inquired about a reward or payment for the stolen art. “I explained that no payment or reward could be made unless we were told who was holding the pictures and how they got them,” Radcliffe said, “and I explained my reasons for our position on that.”17 Radcliffe went on to inform Westbrook that the ALR, the insurance industry, and victims of crime are hesitant to pay what amounts to a ransom for stolen property lest they encourage such schemes. So, Radcliffe told Westbrook, a number of conditions would have to be met before any payments would be made to those currently holding the paintings. “The conditions included the fact that we must know the identity of the person to whom the payment was going to be made and have some understanding or assurance that they would not pass that payment on to any criminal. We also needed to know how the pictures had come into the possession of the person holding them. We needed to inform the police, and we needed to make certain that no payment was excessive and that the maximum intelligence for the police was obtained at the same time,” said Radcliffe.18
Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, Westbrook inquired about the possibility of payments to him for his help. Seizing the opportunity to get Westbrook on his side, Radcliffe agreed to some payments dependent on his assistance. In other words, he co-opted Westbrook.
It proved to be a wise move. Westbrook opened up to the ALR with more insight into exactly who it was behind the operation. He reported that he was contacted only via telephone by an unknown person who was using him as a conduit for information. He could only confirm that the caller had a “mid-Atlantic accent” and called him in the evening, a fact that led the Londoner to believe his calls were coming from the United States because of the time difference. The only thing that Westbrook was sure of, though, was that the caller was insistent in his expectation that he receive “substantial payment” for any paintings he might turn over.19
Seeking to determine whether the anonymous party in the States was truly in possession of the Bakwin paintings, the ALR team requested proof of life. That’s when the holding party did something that proved it beyond any doubt: he provided photos of all seven works. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be absolute proof, but unbeknownst to everyone but Bakwin, no photos of the stolen Utrillo existed. Not even the artist himself had photographed the painting. In fact, when Bakwin posted a notice of his stolen art back in 1978, he could produce only an image of a similar Utrillo painting. So when Westbrook produced the ALR with an image of Bakwin’s Utrillo, it was obvious the photo was taken post-theft, and thus it became clear that the man with the mid-Atlantic accent was for real.
Following the proof of life, Radcliffe received a proposal from the shadowy figure through Westbrook. According to Radcliffe, the party holding Bakwin’s art notified him that “if we brought the pictures in to a neutral location, a bank in Switzerland, and they were inspected by an expert and proved to be the pictures stolen from Mr. Bakwin, then they would release those pictures, provided we pay $15 million.”20 So there it was: a price tag, and a rather exorbitant one at that.
Radcliffe immediately dismissed the proposal. He told Westbrook that his side needed someone—preferably an attorney—with whom the ALR could negotiate face-to-face. In mid-1999, Westbrook informed Radcliffe that a Swiss lawyer, Dr. Bernhard Vischer, would be entering the negotiations on behalf of the party holding the paintings, and within weeks the first of many meetings was held in Geneva at the offices of an attorney for the ALR. Vischer revealed to Radcliffe that the involvement of Russians, which had been cited during the initial overtures made through Westbrook, were false. He also let it be known that the party he represented—and refused to identify—expected payment for the return of the paintings. In response, Radcliffe spelled out again the ethical argument against paying what was essentially a ransom demand, since he had no way of knowing whether the party holding the paintings was one of the thieves or closely connected to them.
Bakwin’s team continued to work feverishly to determine who had possession of his art. Radcliffe submitted a number of questions to Vischer toward that end, but the answers provided were of little value. Finally, Radcliffe told Vischer that he would have to produce a statement stating to whom any payment would go. For instance, Vischer’s boss would have to attest to the fact that he was not the thief, nor a criminal, nor a member of the Bakwin family, and so on. This would provide Bakwin and the ALR with some assurance that they were not making unethical payments. Absent such a statement, Vischer would have to identify the individual who was controlling the stolen paintings. Finally, after further discussion, Vischer agreed to the latter demand.
With the promise of the statement from Vischer in hand, Radcliffe and his team came up with an idea that would nevertheless keep Michael Bakwin’s money out of the hands of this unscrupulous anonymous figure. Radcliffe successfully negotiated with Vischer a trade of sorts: in return for the Cézanne, ownership of the other six paintings would be signed over to Vischer’s client. Upon hearing of the deal, Bakwin told Radcliffe, “I think that’s extortion, but if we can get the painting back that way, I can’t believe that we could not also get the other six paintings.”21
The deal was to be consummated at the same Geneva offices of the ALR’s lawyer where Radcliffe and Vischer first met. The date was set for October 25, 1999. Radcliffe and a pair of art experts from Sotheby’s—Michel
Strauss and Caroline Lang—arrived on time, eager to see if the proposal would go as planned and to inspect the Cézanne should it be delivered as agreed. Tensions were high as hours passed before Vischer finally arrived, looking “hot and bothered,” according to Strauss.22 The parties got right to work and reviewed the pertinent paperwork; seeing everything in order, Vischer made a brief phone call to an unknown party saying that he would be retrieving the painting to bring back to the offices.
Though Vischer instructed everyone to wait inside as he left the office to get the painting, Radcliffe followed at a distance and watched the goings-on. He witnessed Vischer proceed from the grounds of the office to a street corner where he waited beneath a tree. Suddenly, in a scene straight out of a John le Carré novel, a white car drove toward Vischer and stopped at the corner. An object wrapped in a black trash bag was passed through the car door. Once Vischer took possession, he headed back upstairs to the lawyer’s office as the mysterious white car sped away from the scene.
Paul Cézanne could never have imagined such a scene, and he likely never dreamed his precious Bouilloire et Fruits would be subject to such cloak-and-dagger intrigue, never mind ending up in a trash bag. But there it was as the bagged package was unwrapped and the painting inspected by experts in Impressionist paintings from Sotheby’s, both of whom confirmed that the painting was authentic. “Nervously impatient,” Strauss would later write, “I tore a small hole in the bin-bag with my right index finger, pushed aside the layers of soft padding and revealed about six square centimeters of paint. I was instantly in no doubt that this was the Cézanne in question, recognizing the patches of colour and the artist’s distinctive brushwork. Impatiently, I finished unwrapping the package and brought to light the stunning still life, unframed and in fine condition.”23
With that, Radcliffe agreed to sign a bill of sale on Bakwin’s behalf that read, “For value received, the undersigned transfers and assigns to Erie International Trading Company Panama (the company) all of the undersigned’s right, title and interest to the paintings described on schedule A.” Schedule A was merely a one-page document on an Art Loss Register letterhead listing the seven paintings stolen from Bakwin’s Stockbridge home in 1978, with a line scratched through the Cézanne and initialed by Vischer. A sealed envelope containing the identity of the anonymous individual behind both the Erie International Trading Company and the negotiations themselves was presented and, as agreed, given to the multinational law firm Herbert Smith for safekeeping.
Radcliffe instructed Strauss to transport the Cézanne to London immediately, and after insuring the piece for transit for nearly $20 million, the team left that evening on a London-bound flight with the painting still wrapped in the trash bag and on the aircraft floor at Strauss’s feet.24
Soon thereafter, Michael Bakwin was reunited with his prized Bouilloire et Fruits, the painting that he had not only urged his parents to buy, but had described as the most beautiful thing in the world.25 The reunion, however, was bittersweet. Faced with an enormous bill from the ALR, whose fee was based on the value of the painting, and concerned about his ability to safeguard a painting of such historic and monetary value, Bakwin came to the sad realization that he would have to sell his beloved Cézanne at auction. He instructed Sotheby’s to sell the painting as soon as convenient. The famed auction house was able to include it in its December 1999 sale, where it brought Bakwin more than $28 million. In an affidavit, Bakwin stated that he then paid the ALR approximately $2.6 million.26
The recovery of the Cézanne in 1999 was a major victory for Radcliffe. Indeed, it was the biggest and most important recovery of a stolen painting that the ALR had ever accomplished. But Radcliffe and Bakwin did not intend to rest on the laurels of the Cézanne return and went back to work to regain ownership of the six paintings signed over to whomever was behind Panama’s Erie International Trading Company. In fact, on the very night of the Cézanne recovery, with the painting safely en route to London, Radcliffe joined Vischer for a drink and posited to him that the agreement he had signed earlier that same day might not stand up in court. He told Vischer, “They should never try to sell the pictures, they should come back to us, and . . . we should negotiate now to get those pictures returned” before law enforcement began putting pressure on Vischer and his principals at Erie International.27 Within months, with Swiss authorities allegedly stirring over his involvement in the case, Vischer withdrew from further negotiations.
For the next six years, the ALR continued to pursue the remaining six Bakwin paintings. Negotiations with Tony Westbrook, who had resumed his role as intermediary with the unnamed holder of the paintings, continued but moved glacially. Meanwhile, the anonymous holder of the paintings approached a prominent Massachusetts businessman, Paul Palandjian, seeking his help in selling the six remaining Bakwin paintings. Palandjian was told that though the paintings were once stolen, title for them had been subsequently cleared. In January 2005, Palandjian traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, and met with an affluent Swiss banker, Henri Klein, and took delivery of the paintings. With the help of Klein, Palandjian stored the paintings in a Swiss bank vault while he approached Sotheby’s about selling the artwork. Sotheby’s informed Palandjian that they were interested in selling four of the works—the two Soutines, the Vlaminck, and the Utrillo.28
Then, in the spring of 2005, Julian Radcliffe received a call from Sotheby’s in London about four paintings they planned to include in an upcoming auction. This was hardly unusual: running checks through the ALR prior to sale was by then accepted as a key step in performing due diligence on an artwork’s provenance. But Radcliffe’s interest was piqued when he was asked if title was clear on four of the six stolen Bakwin paintings. For the second time, Michael Bakwin’s paintings were at a critical crossroads. If Radcliffe told the Sotheby’s representative that the pictures could not be legally sold, they’d likely disappear again for untold years. So he made a key decision: he told Sotheby’s the paintings were clear for sale. A month later, with the paintings’ whereabouts—London—now known, Radcliffe and Bakwin filed suit in a British court to stop the sale, arguing that the 1999 agreement to, in essence, trade ownership of six of the paintings for the return of the Cézanne was made under duress. The High Court of London agreed with Bakwin’s argument and not only awarded ownership of all of the paintings to him but ordered that the identity of the man behind Erie International Trading Company be revealed. On January 23, 2006, Bakwin was given the elaborately sealed envelope that had previously been entrusted to the law firm Herbert Smith. Within, he finally learned the name of his tormenter: Robert Mardirosian, the attorney who had found the stolen paintings in his attic decades earlier. There was another key component to the High Court’s judgment: Mardirosian was ordered to pay Bakwin $3 million to recoup his costs.29
In response to the judgment, Mardirosian embarked on a curious public relations mission in the United States. He granted an extensive interview to the Boston Globe in which he made no qualms about what amounted to his criminal behavior. And he went to the airwaves to tell his side of the story on Boston’s National Public Radio station, WBUR, in an interview with host Bob Oakes. It was the latter that proved most damaging to Mardirosian. Oakes asked Mardirosian, “You knew they [the paintings] were stolen; your client [Colvin] told you that.” Mardirosian answered, “That’s right.” Mardirosian went on to state that he had held onto the paintings so he could get a reward or finder’s fee and had moved them overseas years earlier for safekeeping.30
FBI Special Agent Geoff Kelly of the agency’s Boston Field Office received a call from Julian Radcliffe some time after the British High Court had issued the injunction halting the sale of Bakwin’s paintings. Radcliffe requested a meeting with Kelly to discuss the latest developments in the case, which the bureau had been monitoring for years. Agent Kelly is everything you’d expect from an FBI agent and more. A SWAT team operator assigned to the Violent Crimes Task Force who
can sit at a piano and play Rachmaninoff, Kelly was particularly qualified to deal with the Mardirosian art-related matter. He had spent years investigating complex fraud cases with the economic crimes unit and was a member of the FBI’s exclusive Art Crime Team. Perhaps most notably, Kelly was the FBI’s lead special agent investigating the infamous 1990 heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—by far the largest art theft in history. He was just the man to work in pursuit of stolen masterpieces.
Radcliffe laid out what he knew of the saga to the savvy street agent, and Kelly went to work investigating the matter. After reviewing evidence including a shipping invoice produced by Radcliffe listing the consignor of four of the paintings in question as Palandjian (who described himself as an “agent of an undisclosed owner”), and the document naming Mardirosian as the owner of Erie International, Kelly was confident he had enough to establish probable cause for the arrest of Mardirosian. Still, the agent recalls being shocked when he heard the Mardirosian radio interview in real time during his commute to work one morning: “I was listening to NPR, as is usual, and I almost drove off the road when I started to listen to Bob Oakes’ interview with Mr. Mardirosian. As I was listening, my cell phone started to go off from a number of my colleagues who were listening to NPR as well.” Kelly recalls that during the radio interview, Mardirosian helped make the FBI’s case against him. “One of the issues I anticipated with regard to a prosecution was proving intent relating to the substantive charge of possessing stolen property,” Kelly later recalled. “It was incredible that Mr. Mardirosian, a defense attorney, was speaking to a reporter on live radio acknowledging that he was aware that the artwork was stolen.”31