The disappearance of gallerist/art consultant Inigo Philbrick due to a fraud of 85 million dollars has been on the agenda of the contemporary art world for the last 3 years.
Inigo Philbrick began his career as a very talented art consultant in London.
He even attracted the attention of White Cube Gallery founder Jay Jopling.
Jopling even helps Philbrick open his gallery in Mayfair and is one of the investors.
Inigo Philbrick's business goes very well for a while.
He starts collecting the most expensive works from the biggest auctions.
Inigo Philbrick (born 1987) is a former American art dealer who was jailed for wire fraud in May 2022 for seven years, and ordered to forfeit $86.7 million.
He makes huge sales to famous collectors, and he begins to live a jet-setting life like his collector customers.
Then he suddenly disappears, and that's when it becomes clear that he sold the same works to more than one person, and in the end, he did not deliver the works to any of them.
Philbrick, who is also on trial on charges of money smuggling and identity theft, buys Jean-Michel Basquiat's work "Humidity" for Sasha Pesko for 12.5 million dollars at an auction and promises the investor that they can sell the work for a much higher price in the same year.
Philbrick then uses the same work and receives a large investment from the fund called Athena. He lends the work to the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo to be exhibited in order to further increase its subsequent sales value.
He also sells works signed by Christopher Wool and Rudolf Stingel for millions of dollars to multiple people, without knowing each other, using the same method.
There is no trace of Inigo Philbrick, who disappeared with 85 million dollars, for a long time, leaving many angry art collectors behind.
Inigo Philbrick said to be the biggest art fraudster of recent times, was finally caught in Vanuatu, a South Pacific island, in July 2020.
Just because Inigo Philbrick, who was accused of a $20 million fraud by the New York Federal Court, had galleries in London and Miami, a significant portion of the sales were taking place in these cities.
Philbrick was handed over to the United States as a result of an extradition request from the US Embassy in Papua New Guinea.
Philbrick eventually pleaded guilty in court for the first time.
When asked why he committed a crime, he answered in one word.
The answer was simple: “Money”.
Now he must pay back $86 million.
There is also a 7-year prison sentence.
His lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, made the following statement: “My client has taken responsibility for all his actions and will pay for these crimes for the rest of his life. Even though his behavior was dishonest and criminal, it should not be forgotten that he was part of a completely sick industry like the art world, where such behavior was considered normal.”
Now, Robert Newland, who worked together with Inigo Philbrick at the White Cube gallery for a while and later collaborated, is being tried in the USA, and prosecutors are asking for a prison sentence for Newland, who eventually confessed that he was guilty.
Saying that he needed to serve a serious sentence in order to send a meaningful and deterrent message to the art market, Newland said, "I quickly learned that deception on a large scale in the art world is an accepted practice." He will appear before the judge this week to learn his sentence. Of course, in the meantime, the famous gallery White Cube, on the other hand, makes the following statement about its founder Jay Jopling: "Jay Jopling is the victim of Rob and Inigo's frauds, it would not be right to talk more about this situation, which has been brought to justice."