Lawsuit Alleges Warhol Forgery Scheme Spanning Florida, Peru, and Philadelphia
Duped into buying more than $6.7 million worth of fake Andy Warhol paintings and prints, real estate investor Richard Perlman and his family have launched a multinational lawsuit against the players they say are complicit in the alleged scam. Filed on September 9 in a Miami state court and first reported by the Wall Street Journal , the lawsuit accuses roughly half a dozen individuals and companies across Florida, Philadelphia, and Peru of acting as “suppliers, fake authenticators and distributors” within an elaborate forgery network. The lawsuit traces the alleged journey of the illicit works to Miami—from the painter employed in Peru, through their smuggling into the US, to the construction of a false provenance, including fabricated documents and a label for the canvas. According to the lawsuit, the forgery was uncovered in 2023, when the Perlman family invited experts from Christie’s to assess a collection that included portraits they believed were b...