The way to the prisons was taken, after their apology to the 5th regular investigator, by two of the three arrested for the case of fake works of art, allegedly genuine and crafted by famous Greek artists, which they intended to auction online.

With the concurrence of the interrogator and the prosecutor, they were deemed temporary prisoners 70 years old and the 62 years oldwhile on the contrary n daughter of the first she was released with restrictive conditions.

What they said in their apologies

On apologies all of them they refused the acts attributed to them, specifically the charges of forgery, the use of a forged document, the acceptance and disposal of the proceeds of crime, the possession of imitation monuments with the purpose of passing them off as genuine and the criminal gang, while they requested an expert opinion to prove the their claim to the authenticity of the works.

In more detail, the 70-year-old, who according to the case file appears as a representative of an auction house and is attributed a leading role in the gang’s alleged activity, seems to have claimed that he kept the works as a “trust deposit” in view of the auction and received from the sales a fee of 17%.

For his part, the 62-year-old – according to information – said art collector which he bought from his savings for his co-accused to sell. Finally, the 42-year-old daughter of the main defendant claimed that she had nothing to do with the projects and that she was helping with technical issues in the auctions.

They would sell 123 fake paintings

According to an announcement by EL.AS., the defendants intended to sell in total 123 fake paintings paintings, by famous Greek artists, in an online auction, expecting to obtain a financial benefit.

The relevant list of fake works was posted on the internet by the organizing company – under the title “39th Greek Art” – and was to be held last Thursday. On the eve of the auction, police officers of the Department of Protection of Cultural Heritage and Antiquities of the Directorate for Combating Trafficking and Trafficking in People and Goods raided a “gallery” located on Alex Street. Svolos but also in adjacent storage areas and workshops, from where they confiscated a total of 930 works of art.

The catalog of the works of the planned auction was examined by an employee of the National Gallery who opined that these were obviously fake works, some of which resembled well-known works by Greek artists. It is indicated that the catalog included works by the following artists: Alekos Fasianos, Nikos Hatzikyriakos – Gikas, Dimitris Mytaras, Konstantinos Parthenis, Yiannis Tsarouhis, etc.