A year ago New York dealer Robert Rogal accepted a framed watercolor presented by a young woman who identified herself as Karolina Bankowska. She said the piece, signed Andrew Wyeth, was a family heirloom. Rogal took it on consignment despite unclear provenance and valued it at roughly $20,000–$30,000; he now believes it was a forgery—one of more than 200 counterfeit works federal prosecutors say Bankowska, 26, and her father, Erwin Bankowski, 50, attempted to sell.
This week the pair pleaded guilty to charges related to defrauding buyers, including major auction houses, of at least $2 million through a scheme that reproduced lesser-known works by prolific artists such as Banksy and Andy Warhol. Prosecutors say the counterfeit paintings were created in Poland by an unnamed co-conspirator. Their most profitable documented sale was a purported Richard Mayhew painting sold by DuMouchelles last October for $160,000; the auction house has said it cooperated with investigators. Other auction houses cited in the case—Bonhams, Phillips, Freeman’s and Antique Arena—declined or did not respond to requests for comment.
The Bankowskis, Polish nationals living in New Jersey, face counts that include wire fraud conspiracy and falsely representing Native American–produced works after copying a piece by Luiseño artist Fritz Scholder. Under federal guidelines they could face more than three years in prison, roughly $1.9 million in restitution and possible deportation. In court Karolina Bankowska acknowledged wrongdoing, saying, “my conduct was wrong and I am guilty,” and her lawyer noted she deposited more than $1 million into an escrow account. Erwin Bankowski, through an interpreter, apologized; his attorney described his actions as a regrettable decision made to support his family.
Prosecutors say the operation began in 2020 when the Bankowskis commissioned a Polish artist to produce the forgeries. To make them appear authentic, they used antique paper, added forged gallery stamps on the backs, and invented plausible histories that referenced defunct galleries. Some of the backstamps contained errors that investigators say were revealing—for example, a stamp on the suspected Wyeth listed 1976 alongside a zoning code that had been discontinued in 1962. That same piece also bore the name and address of M. Knoedler & Co., the once-respected New York gallery that closed in 2011 amid its own forgery controversy.
Experts called the fraud a familiar example of the vulnerabilities in the art market. Erin Thompson, a City University of New York professor who studies art crime, said the scheme was not novel except for the fact that the forgers were ultimately caught, and she warned that many more fakes likely remain in circulation.
In several instances auction-house staff or artist representatives raised concerns. In March 2023, representatives for artist Raimonds Staprans identified a forged “Triple Boats” offered at auction; prosecutors say that painting nonetheless sold for $60,000 a few days later. Rogal said he became suspicious of the Wyeth because the backstamp looked “too clean,” and he never listed it. When he asked Bankowska to retrieve the work she stopped responding. Reexamining the painting among numerous consignments in a Queens warehouse, Rogal reflected on the difficulty of policing the market: “You try to do a service and provide it correctly. Can we be fooled? Absolutely.”