Italian police uncovered a vast European forgery network, seizing more than 2,000 fake artworks worth around $215 million that were attributed to artists like Banksy, Picasso, and Andy Warhol. Prosecutors said Monday that a 2023 probe led them to a group that specialized in Banksy forgeries, and experts who assisted with the operation said it was “the biggest act of protection of Banksy’s work.”
Art forgery is not a new phenomenon, but the rise of AI-generated digital forgeries, which can be made quickly, presents new challenges, Smithsonian Magazine wrote this year. One company is using artificial intelligence to detect forgery: Its tools detected at least 40 inauthentic artworks for sale on eBay.
