William "Billy" Mumford, master counterfeiter extraordinaire, has been found guilty of forging up to 1,000 paintings and was sentenced to two years in jail at Southwark Crown Court for conspiracy to defraud.
Mumford will likely go down as one of Britain's most prolific forgers. Working from a small bedroom in a rented house, Mumford created an average of four paintings a week for a period of five years. His most notable knock-offs included post-independence period painters Sayed Haider Raza and Maqbool Fida Husain ("India's Picasso"), as well as Welsh landscape painter Kyffin Williams and surrealist John Tunnard. His forgeries fooled hundreds of experts and buyers alike, selling on Ebay and reputable auction houses throughout the world for large sums of money. For example, two of his paintings were first authenticated at Bonham's in London and subsequently sold in Dubai for $40,000 USD.
Mumford employed a group of conspirators--including his wife Daphne and other associates Martin and Karen Petrovsky and Anthony Resse--who also received prison sentences for receiving 20% of the proceeds.
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