Palm Beach art dealer pleads guilty in scheme that sold fake Andy Warhol artwork

A Palm Beach art dealer pleaded guilty to laundering money in a scheme that sold counterfeit artwork attributed to Andy Warhol, federal officials said Tuesday.

In October, Daniel Elie Bouaziz told a customer that works that he was selling, for between $75,000 and $240,000, were authentic, original Warhol pieces, and that some of the pieces were signed by the artist, the U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida said in a news release.

The customer made a $200,000 down payment for the artwork that was deposited into Bouaziz’s account and then wired to other accounts, including one controlled by the art dealer, federal officials said.

Bouaziz’s two art galleries on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach were raided by the FBI in December.

Bouaziz sold fake Banksy, Jean-Michael Basquiat, Henri Matisse and Roy Lichtenstein pieces for hundreds of thousands of dollars, complete with forged signatures and documents falsely stating the pieces’ ownership histories, court records say.

Witnesses told the FBI that they could tell some of the pieces were inauthentic based off of the signatures and their familiarity with some of the artists’ styles. One witness told investigators if the Banksy works Bouaziz had in his galleries were real, they would be sales worth millions, according to an affidavit.

Sentencing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. May 30 before U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Fort Pierce. The judge could impose a maximum of 10 years in prison and three years of supervised release, according to the plea agreement.