Greece’s First Comprehensive Legal Framework to Combat Forgeries: Art Market Transparency and Accountability

August 30, 2026

Photo: I. Tarsis, Sometime in Greece

By Jacqueline Koutrodimos-Lewis

This year, Greece has passed a new law to combat art crime, including forgery, trafficking, and vandalism, with offenders now facing fines of up to €300,000 and prison sentences of up to 10 years.^[1] A new Ministry of Culture unit, the Department of Works of Art, along with a centralized registry of expert art appraisers, aims to stop the recirculation of forged materials by encouraging transparency and cooperation within the art market.^[2] In collaboration with competent authorities and professionals, these specialized forces are expected to strengthen the traceability of works, protect art market personnel, and restore confidence in a system that has come under scrutiny for fraudulent activity in recent years.^[3]

This provision was first introduced as Greece’s first comprehensive institutional framework for the prevention and combating of forgery and fraud involving works of art and collectibles. Approved by Parliament on January 29, 2026, the draft bill of the Ministry of Culture marked both symbolic and legal steps toward safeguarding cultural heritage, protecting artists, and ensuring ethical art market operations.^[4]

Prior to the new law, art forgery penalties applied only to cases tied to a financial transaction. The law goes beyond the basic provisions requiring proof of a financial transaction, laying out instead a clear legal framework for prosecuting individuals engaged in the illicit art market at many different levels. Now, all acts associated with art fraud — including “creating, counterfeiting, displaying, trafficking, and selling” forged works — can be charged as crimes, according to the Ministry.^[5]

Possession with “intent to distribute” has also been criminalized and extended to artwork with dishonest provenance or falsified documents relating to date or condition.^[6] This is especially necessary for Greece, a country with a rich depository of cultural material, some of which finds its way to the globalized online art market. The digitization of the market has increased the volume of fraudulent or forged material at auction.^[7]

The law also includes protections against the vandalism of cultural heritage, whether in museums or in public spaces, and enshrines protection to historic cinemas.^[8] Destruction of artistic work has made headlines in Greece, with far-right Greek politician Nikolaos Papadopoulo smashing four paintings on the floor of the National Gallery in Athens last year.^[9]

In addition to instituting a stricter and more complete regulatory framework, the law also hands down harsher punishments for offenders, substantially strengthening the deterrent against forgery and fraud.^[10] Penalties are scaled according to the severity of the offense and financial damage, with aggravating circumstances such as professional or repeated involvement taken into consideration.^[11] For example, independent forgers could receive fines between €5,000 ($5,860) and €120,000 ($140,000), with a six-month and five-year prison sentence handed down for each respective transgression.^[12] For repeated offenders, cases involving organized criminal networks, or cases with financial losses exceeding €120,000 ($140,000), the penalties for forgery considerably increase to a €300,000 ($350,000) fine and 10 years in prison.^[13]

In recent years, Greece has made several strides in the crack-down of illegal art market activity. In May 2024, an ongoing investigation into a multi-generational art forgery ring in Thessaloniki resulted in the arrest of three individuals and the discovery of at least five studios in the city centerhttps://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/convention-means-prohibiting-and-preventing-illicit-import-export-and-transfer-ownership-culturalstocked with numerous fake paintings by Greek modernists including Alekos Fassianos, Yannis Gaitis, and Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas.^[14] Earlier this year, Athenian police raided gallery sites belonging to popular television personality Giorgos Tsangarakis, seizing 321 paintings attributed to Greek and foreign artists, of which specialists authenticated only seven.^[15] The findings also included antiquities such as Hellenistic amphorae, Byzantine icons, and an 18th-century Gospel.^[16] Tsangarakis was arrested on March 20, 2026, flagged by expert sources for his “systematic and ongoing efforts to deceive art lovers through television and online auctions.”^[17]

The EU has also taken legal steps to combat illicit trafficking through legislation informed by cultural heritage protection. EU Regulation 2019/880, which entered into force on June 28, 2025, requires importers from outside the EU to provide evidence of lawful export from the object’s country of origin.^[18] The UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property is still the foundational law for the vetting of material without a paper trail, or for material that left its country of origin pre-1970. For antiquities and artworks from outside the EU that are over 200 years old and valued at more than €18,000 ($19,500), the Regulation 2019/880 imposes stricter import controls through additional documentation.^[19]

Dedicated cultural heritage legislation, rather than the application of broader existing law, has become an increasingly recognized approach in European countries. Now, instead of criminals in the art world falling under generic fraud and forgery laws, Greece now has a more applicable comprehensive legal framework to ensure that bad actors, whether or not they succeed in bringing their deceptive object to auction, are brought to justice.^[20]

About the Author

Jacqueline Koutrodimos-Lewis was a Spring 2026 Graduate Intern at the Center for Art Law. Her interests lie at the intersection of ancient art, local communities, and modern collecting. She has a master’s in Classics from the Graduate Center, CUNY, in New York, where she focused on Eastern Mediterranean material culture, classical reception, and museum provenance. She received her bachelor’s in Art History and English Literature from Seattle University, and has a background in communications for museums and non-profits. Her archaeological projects include projects in Pella, Greece (2025) and Thouria, Greece (2024).

Suggested Readings

Nikolentzos, Kostas, Katerina Voutsa, and Christos Koutsothanasis. “What Does It Take to Protect Cultural Property? Some Aspects on the Fight against Illegal Trade of Cultural Goods from the Greek Point of View.” International Journal of Cultural Property 24, no. 3 (2017): 351–76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0940739117000170.

Iosifidou, Maria Anna, and Irini Stamatoudi. 2025. “Fifty-Five Years After the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property: Hiccups and Challenges” Heritage 8, no. 12: 519. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8120519

Select References

1. Jo Lawson-Tancred, Greece Creates New Art Crime Unit to Combat Forgery and Trafficking, Artnet News (Apr. 10, 2026), https://news.artnet.com/art-world/greece-art-crime-2763957. ↑
2. Riah Pryor, Greece Introduces New Law to Tackle Art Forgery, The Art Newspaper (Apr. 9, 2026), https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/04/09/greece-introduces-new-law-to-tackle-art-forgery-and-damage. ↑
3. Hellenic Copyright Organization, New Law No. 5271/2026 (Government Gazette Issue A’, No. 11, 30/01/2026) on Forged Works of Art: Stricter Penalties and the Establishment of a Registry (Feb. 3, 2026), https://opi.gr/en/news/6682/. ↑
4. Jo Lawson-Tancred, Greece Creates New Art Crime Unit to Combat Forgery and Trafficking, ↑
5. Jo Lawson-Tancred. ↑
6. Jo Lawson-Tancred. ↑
7. Riah Pryor, Greece Introduces New Law to Tackle Art Forgery. ↑
8. Hellenic Copyright Organization, New Law No. 5271/2026 (Government Gazette Issue A’, No. 11, 30/01/2026). ↑
9. Jo Lawson-Tancred, Greece Creates New Art Crime Unit to Combat Forgery and Trafficking. ↑
10. Hellenic Copyright Organization, New Law No. 5271/2026 (Government Gazette Issue A’, No. 11, 30/01/2026. ↑
11. Hellenic Copyright Organization. ↑
12. Jo Lawson-Tancred, Greece Creates New Art Crime Unit to Combat Forgery and Trafficking. ↑
13. Jo Lawson-Tancred. ↑
14. Anastasia Stamatopoulou, Authorities Bust Thessaloniki Art Forgery Ring, Kathimerini (Dec. 6, 2024), https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1255472/authorities-bust-thessaloniki-art-forgery-ring/. ↑
15. Newsroom, Auctioneer Accused of Selling Fakes on Live TV, Kathimerini (Mar. 24, 2026), https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/1298971/auctioneer-accused-of-selling-fakes-on-live-tv/. ↑
16. Newsroom, Auctioneer Accused of Selling Fakes on Live TV, Kathimerini. ↑
17. Newsroom. ↑
18. Margaret Carrigan, New E.U. Import Regulations Are Causing ‘Procedural Paranoia’ for the Art Trade, Artnet News (June 7, 2025), https://news.artnet.com/market/eu-import-regulations-2653480. ↑
19. Margaret Carrigan, New E.U. Import Regulations Are Causing ‘Procedural Paranoia’ for the Art Trade. ↑
20. Riah Pryor, Greece Introduces New Law to Tackle Art Forgery. ↑