The mastermind who orchestrated the 20th Century’s

The mastermind who orchestrated the 20th Century’s biggest contemporary art fraud was today (FRI) faced with a pnds stlng 125,000 bill or face another two years behind bars.

Nicknamed the ‘puppet-master’, John Drewe flooded the market with fakes painted by a gifted accomplice.

It is a tale that has since captured the imagination of Hollywood – film moguls planning a blockbuster covering the scam – Michael Douglas tipped for the role of Drewe in the sting.

However, Drewe, who still maintains his innocence, refuses to take part in the celluloid recreation but it is believed artist John Myatt is advising on the project.

London’s Southwark Crown Court heard hundreds of thousands of pounds passed through numbered Swiss accounts, controlled by the genius who made a fortune flooding the market with a string of fakes.

Further cash went through accounts opened under false names.

A judge ordered Drewe pay back the money, ruling he had lied to the court claiming he was now penniless and had been ‘less than frank’ over his assets.

Drewe is believed to have pocketed at least pnds stlng 1 million selling hundreds of ‘lost’ masterpieces allegedly painted by modern masters but in reality largely commissions he gave to an impoverished but talented Myatt.

The Crown will now claw back some of the proceeds – the mastermind being given three months to meet the confiscation order or return to jail.

Drewe, 51, described as intellectually brilliant, was able to con a market hungry for lost works by a string of artists made the forgeries more attractive by airbrushing false histories for the works into invaluable archive material by simple ‘cut and paste’ techniques.

In doing so, Drewe, the once Bentley-driving communist, tainted invaluable museum and gallery records and undermined the world’s market for the genuine article.

Drewe, of Washington Close, Reigate, Surrey, was jailed for six years in February 1999, after being convicted of conspiracy to defraud, forgery and theft.

His accomplice, painter John Myatt, 54, of Sughall, Stafford, was jailed for 12 months after admitting his part in the ten year conspiracy which ran from January 1986 to April 1996.

Drewe lost his appeal against conviction in July but is now a free man, his effective sentence taking into account the time he spent in custody before the pnds stlng 4 million trial which started in September 1998.

Hugo Keith, prosecuting, said the hearing would have to consider the benefit of selling five of nine works that formed the ‘core’ of the Crown’s case against Drewe in the trial.

In an 18 month police investigation, officers were to recover 60 fakes after unravelling a web of deceit spun by Drewe and interviewing hundreds of people in Britain, France, America and Canada.

Up to 140 forgeries remain undetected – possibly part of prized collections.

The swindle began in 1996 when Myatt advertised in Private Eye: ‘Genuine fakes.

Nineteenth and twentieth Century paintings from pnds stlng 150.

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Drewe, said to have an IQ of 165, realised the world of modern art was ripe for fraud – forgeries being hard to spot – and was driven by a desire to demonstrate his superiority over the Establishment.

His plan was to sell imitations – commanding sums of up to pnds stlng 100,000.

To give them an air of authenticity he wormed his way into the Tate Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum to plant false provenances for the ‘lost’ masters, posing as a serious art researcher.

Soon Myatt was imitating the work of artists such as Ben Nicholson, Alberto Giacometti, Graham Sutherland, Jean Dubuffet, Roger Bissiere, Oskar Schlemmer, Marc Chagall, and Nicholas de Stael.

The prosecutor told the trial of Drewe: ‘His prime motive was to make money, although the effort he put into deceiving those he targeted suggests an intellectual delight in fooling people and a contempt for art experts.

‘He realised that if works by famous 20th Century artists could be faked, and the archive material corrupted, he could sell worthless paintings as originals for large sums of money.

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Judge Geoffrey Rivlin, QC, said ‘unquestionably, he (Drewe) was the brains and driving force’ behind a fraud that stunned the international art world.

‘It may well be fortunate that from where he is concerned that in the trial he was only concerned with nine paintings from many,’ he said.

‘The true benefit may well be considerably more than the amount claimed.

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The ‘substantial’ sums paid to Drewe were evident, he said, from the defendant being able to build up a collection of classic cars before his arrest.

The judge dismissed the mastermind’s claims, repeated in court during the three day confiscation hearing, that he was working with government complicity on arms deals as being ‘transparent.

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Indeed he said the defendant stooped to ‘stage whispers’ in order to make a point yet refused to answer ‘simple questions’ – choosing to make ‘an unstoppable stream of mere accusations.

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At the same time Drewe ‘openly and ludicrously’ accused the government over the arms trade and leading barristers of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by hiding evidence to his case.

The judge added: ‘According to the defendant there is always someone beyond the horizon who has conspired against him.

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always a document beyond his reach which proves his innocence.

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He said the defendant was a ‘profligate and inveterate fantasist.

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And he told the court: ‘He may have been very successful in tricking people into paying money for fake paintings and proved to be very able to get people to do his bidding, but he has very little conception of just how transparent he is.

‘And equally how clearly and easily it is he can be exposed during a court trial.

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The judge said the benefit figure was ‘scratching the surface’ of the scam and that Drewe had not begun to account for the whereabouts of his illicit fortune.

‘The defendant has not been frank to the court about his assets.

It is clear from the evidence not all accounts have been disclosed.

‘I have to say on the evidence before me that the defendant has funds available to meet the order.

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The judge said he discounted pnds stlng 260,000 of frozen funds currently in dispute in High Court proceedings – the equity from the sale of a property in Roderick Road, Hampstead – both Drewe and former partner Batsheva Goudsmid fighting for the money.

The address was for a time the ‘nerve centre’ of the fraud, although the judge said Ms Goudsmid was entirely innocent.

Likewise, a pnds stlng 79,000 property in Salisbury Road, Bristol, was also taken out of the equation.

Although held for Drewe in trust, it is currently the home of his mother-in-law – again innocent of any wrongdoing.

After the hearing, Drewe said he planned to appeal the judgement and was hoping to prove his innocence through the European Courts.

He admitted selling millions of pounds worth of fake paintings but maintained it was to launder money to purchase arms for foreign states – secretly backed by the government and the secret service.

ends

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