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In December 2021, the Criminal Investigation Agents of the Federal Investigation Office and IRS arrived at a luxury street in Palm Beach, Florida, a island home for more than 60 billionaires, to raid An exhibition called Danieli Fine Art. FBI agents I stormed the buildingCover the windows with brown paper, and answered very few questions. As it turned out, the owner of the exhibition, Daniel Elie Bouziz, He had sold a secret agent that Jean-Michel Basquiat was legally for $ 12 million. As the investigation later revealed, Bouaziz was actually purchased for $ 495. He was Heal To 27 months in the federal prison by the judge Eileen cannonFlorida icon if there is ever, if perhaps for wrong reasons – and was imprisoned until October 2024.
Just a few months later, in Orlando lower than luxury, the FBI was at hand to calm another Emporium of paintings, and this time the Orlando Arts Museum, which just opened a huge show of missing works by Baskiyat a long time, was said to have been found in a storage and forgot cabinet. Spoiler Alert: The Federal Reserve considered them fake as well, and the raid began a long legal epic that covered it in this magazine in 2023, a story that ended until it was one of the most scandals in museums in American history.
Last week, the FBI visited the Sunshine state again. A man named Leslie Roberts He was Arrest In Coconut Grow, the Boho-Chic Miami suburb, which has long been a center for art collection in tropical regions, was away from the exhibition areas in New York and Los Angeles. The agents brought the Miami Fine Arts exhibition that was established under the cover of the dark last Tuesday night and stayed there until mid -morning Wednesday, the owners of restaurants and passers -by. The helicopters above, and the B-Roll Pig of the Laila Report.
“The FBI was doing his best to hide his efforts and prepare tents so that he can work and cover up the windows with paper,” the correspondent said. Lian Morgon, on Local wplg 10.
The Ministry of Justice issued Fees Soon after: Roberts stands accused of conspiracy of fraud and money laundering to sell fake work by Andy Warhol, and lying about their source. It was not completely surprising. Criminal charges appear to stem from a previous civil lawsuit. Last year, Roberts was named in a civil lawsuit, among other parties, many members of the Perman family, and the local art group who claimed to have linked them to an imaginary actor of Andy Warhol who sold them $ 6 million in works that were fully fake, and then refused to return money. (“I don’t think anything was fake – everything looked well for me.” New York Times Last August, in response to this lawsuit, which is still continuing after Roberts applied for bankruptcy and submitted a relief to relief this month.) Now Roberts faces up to 30 years in prison. Another man, Carlos Miguel Rodriguez Milindies, He was charged in the case for his alleged participation in the wire fraud plot – with civilian accuracy, and it is claimed that Milindes arrived at Warhol’s university house and pretended to be an employee at the Philips Back Dar, in an attempt to ratify business as soon as Perlman begins obtaining their doubts. From there, the scheme quickly collapsed.
The general public has always had an obsession with technical crime, whether it was related to theft in a museum where masterpieces continue from Rembrandt and Vermeer I was lost foreverOr manipulation of the market by revenge traders who are proud of such concepts that this entire technical market is smoke and mirrors. But nothing makes people walk like a good accusation of forgery, and in the past few years, one state in the Federation has besieged the market in such stories.
But even according to Florida’s standards, Leslie Roberts’s narration is something outside. The shipping of previous legal documents and files draws a picture of a man who has spent more than 15 years in manufacturing identities for himself, opening the galleries under the increasingly ridiculous names, and colluding with the law repeatedly due to his inability to stop the non -technician buyers with fake art. She was a family company – her wife, Silvia Castro Roberts, It was in that, and so were they childrenand Leslie Roberts III and Brittany Lynn Roberts. All of this plays in the artistic scene at the surface level by nature in Miami concluded, where you can be Warhol to exist and find someone who trusts that he is real.
Leslie Roberts was accused of Miami Gallery in an indictment recently of Warahols forgery. Prosecutors claim that these artworks are fake, this makes this the latest in a long tradition of alleged artistic fraud in Florida.From the prosecutor’s complaint.
The first thing you notice about Leslie Roberts is eyebrow Tiktok channel. It is a simple construction, I mentioned To be five feet three when he was in his twenties. He had a series of names: Now is Les Roberts, but he had to be Howard Roberts. What is the deal To him tiktok? He is often only in his apartment overlooking Brickell Key, and the lip sync with songs, pretending to fill guitar, with some well -thrown faculty effects. Somehow has 566,000 followers. The last participation in March 27, days before the raid.
Roberts He grew up in Perrin, FloridaOne of the suburbs of Miami, and his family was shaken early through a horrific crime. He often fought his parents, sometimes violently, and in October 1975, when he was 13 years old, his mother fired his father in his head while he was asleep and killed. She was convicted From killing and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
According to Roberts, Roberts came out of Miami University after two semesters and worked in the local cinema theater, where, according to what he mentioned New York Timesand He was dismissed due to the cash dilemma from his customers. He found work on a group of shares based in Denver, and works outside the Miami office. At a certain stage, Bohba Frank Guri, in turn, persuaded to play with the markets with him-Gori sold the profitable company Tile Tile in the field of manufacturing a few years ago, and delivered loads of cash to Roberts. The young trader has distorted a few bonanza in an disturbing EF Hutton, where he soon became one of the most important inventory brokers in the company and was seduced to Merrill Lynch with a big contract. The only problem? His sales were fake, and transactions were printed on the home computer –At the end of the day, he forged $ 47 million of stock trading tips. In fact, he was losing huge sums on the way to the total loss 9 million dollars. He was arrested in February 1986, and by April 1987, he admitted that he was guilty on three charges of mail and conspiracy, and he was Heal To 15 years in prison.
