• German police dismantled a forgery ring selling fake masterpieces attributed to Picasso, Rembrandt, Rubens, and others in coordinated international raids.
• The 77-year-old ringleader allegedly marketed the works—some priced as high as $151 million.
• Over 100 officers seized forged paintings and documents across Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein; the 11 suspects face charges of conspiracy to commit fraud.

Police have busted an alleged German forgery ring, seizing counterfeit masterpieces purporting to be the work of art historical greats such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, and Pablo Picasso, thanks to a coordinated series of raids across Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.

The lead suspect in the case is a 77-year-old German man, who attracted the attention of investigators when he tried to sell two works he claimed were by Picasso, including a portrait of Dora Maar, reports Reuters.

“A potential buyer came to us because the negotiations were not what you’d expect for paintings of that quality,” Patrick Haggenmüller, the head of the Bavarian Police’s Art Investigation Unit, told Reuters TV, as reported by the Art Newspaper. “They were selling them out of their car boot.”

Police looked into the report, and found that the suspect had about 20 other artworks for sale, most for prices ranging from €400,000 ($466,500) to €14 million ($16.32 million). He claims the paintings were by the likes of Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, and Frida Kahlo.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Sampling Officials or Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild (1662). Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

There were several other “Picassos,” including a portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter priced at €35 million to €60 million ($35 million to $70 million) and two ceramic vases.

A Virgin and Child was being offered supposedly by Anthony van Dyck, and there was even a SFr 120 million ($151.3 million) copy of Rembrandt’s The Sampling Officials of the Amsterdam Drapers’ Guild, also known as The Syndics, which is famously part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The sales pitch was that the museum had a copy, and that the fake was actually a long-lost original.

“It was, as suspected, a copy and not a lost masterpiece by Rembrandt van Rijn,” police told the BBC.

The forged paintings Portrait of Marie-Therese Walter with garland and Dora Maar, offered as artworks by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and confiscated by the police. Photo: Matthias Balk / AFP via Getty Images.

More than 100 police officers were involved in the international crackdown, led by the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office, hitting 11 German towns and five Swiss cantons, as well as Liechtenstein. In addition to the presumably forged paintings, authorities seized “documents, records, mobile phones, storage media, and cloud data,” according to the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office.

Police arrested the suspected ringleader during the raid, but he has since been released. He is believed to have 10 accomplices, including a 74-year-old German man who police said “prepared expert reports specifically to confirm the authenticity of the artworks.” The police found the fake Rembrandt in possession of an 84-year-old Swiss woman, who is also among the suspects.

Investigations into the forgeries are still ongoing. The suspects currently face charges of conspiracy to commit fraud. The raid comes roughly a year after Italian police uncovered a widespread European forgery network.