U.S. Grand Jury Charges 3 in $33 Million Art Fraud Scheme as Spain Arrests One of the Defendants

 On April 21, 2014, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and other U.S. law enforcement officials, announced the unsealing of a twelve-count Indictment charging Jose Carlos Bergantiños, 58, of Sands Point, New York;  Jesus Angel Bergantiños, 65, of Lugo, Spain (and a brother of Jose Carlos); and Pei Shen Qian, 75, of Queens, New York, with perpetrating a $33 million scheme to create and sell paintings that they pretended were painted by world-famous artists, but were, in fact, created by Qian.[1]