Father, daughter admit $2m fake Picasso and Banksy scam

The illusion shattered in court: a New Jersey father and daughter admitted they sold forged works billed as art by Pablo Picasso, Banksy and Andy Warhol, in a scheme prosecutors say pulled at least $2 million from buyers.

Federal prosecutors said Erwin Bankowski, 50, and Karolina Bankowska, 26, pleaded guilty after authorities accused them of running a years-long counterfeiting operation aimed at galleries and auction houses, including some of New York’s most prominent fine art sellers. According to the case outlined by prosecutors, the pair commissioned an artist in Poland to produce at least 200 fake works, then pushed them into a market that depends heavily on provenance, reputation and speed.

The case cuts at the soft center of the art trade: even elite buyers can get burned when convincing fakes meet weak verification.

The alleged fraud stands out not only for its scale but for its target list. Reports indicate the buyers included established players with the expertise and prestige that often reassure collectors. That detail sharpens the embarrassment for the industry and raises harder questions about how suspect works move from back rooms and private deals into respected sales channels with enough credibility to command serious money.

The guilty pleas also underscore a wider pressure point in the global art market. Big names attract big prices, and that creates fertile ground for sophisticated forgery schemes that can cross borders with ease. Sources suggest this case relied on that exact mix: internationally produced fakes, high-demand artists and buyers willing to trust paperwork and appearances that seemed convincing enough in the moment.

What comes next matters well beyond one criminal case. Sentencing and any additional court filings could reveal more about how the fakes entered the market and what safeguards failed along the way. For auction houses, galleries and collectors, the lesson looks stark: in a market built on authenticity, one successful forgery ring can shake confidence far beyond the sales it touched.