Nov. 2 (UPI) — A Finnish court sentenced a married couple to prison time and fined them $11.4 million for selling forgeries of paintings by the likes of Claude Monet and Henri Matisse.
The Helsinki District Court handed down a five-year prison sentence to Reijo Pollari and a four-year sentence to his wife, Kati Marjatta Karkkiainen, on Wednesday. They each were found guilty of 30 counts of aggravated fraud.
Eight other accomplices also were sentenced up to three years in prison.
Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad reported that together, Pollari and Karkkiainen owned Galerie Vision in Helsinki where they sold more than 200 paintings they purported to be painted by well-known artists. The most expensive fake painting they sold was one they said was painted by Fernand Leger. It went for $2.5 million.
