A fraudster who attempted to sell bogus ancient statues to a popular auctioneer was foiled when his fake accompanying paperwork was found to be written with printing methods that were 25 years too modern.
Andrew Crowley, 46, of Longwell Green, Gloucestershire, asked Sotheby’s to value three Cycladic figures and one Anatolian stargazer statuette that he had inherited from his grandfather, Southwark Crown Court heard on Friday.
Prosecutors alleged that, if real, the items together would have been worth about £680,000 based on previous sales.
However, Judge Nicholas Rimmer said that the estimate hinged on multiple hypotheticals and therefore reduced the value to £340,000.
Crowley had presented fake invoices for the statues that purported to be written in 1976, using a typewriter on paper embossed with an antique’s dealers logo – and even a nine-pence stamp.
However, Crowley’s forgery was revealed after forensics found they were made using printing methods invented only in 2001.
Sotheby’s experts had also spotted multiple spelling mistakes including in the supplier’s title.
Handing Crowley a two-year suspended sentence, the judge said: “It was a crude attempt because Sotheby’s rumbled, to use the vernacular, or spotted, these documents as bogus fairly early on”.
The judge accepted that Crowley inherited the statues from his grandfather and did not at any point believe that they were counterfeits.
The Cycladic statues were each about 30cm tall weighing about 1kg, police said.
Legitimate Cycladics were made in the Cyclades islands in Greece during the Bronze Age about 3,000 years ago.
Therefore, “the offending and dishonesty in this case must turn around the paperwork”, he said.
Crowley previously admitted dishonestly making a false representation to Sotheby’s auction house intending to make gain between November 4 2022 and July 27 2023.
He was also ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,630 in costs over three months.
Detective Constable Ray Swan, who led the Met’s probe, said in a statement: “This case also highlights the crucial role played by industry experts in helping to protect the integrity of the London art market.
“Sotheby’s staff acted responsibly and swiftly in raising their concerns, and their cooperation was instrumental in preventing a significant fraud.”
A spokesperson for the auctioneers’ praised the force’s “meticulous and superbly executed investigation that has helped prevent fraudulent material entering the market.”
