• A Chinese librarian stole paintings from a gallery, replaced them with his forgeries – then realised fraudsters were doing the same thing with his fake copies!
• It’s reported that Xiao Yuan told a court he made almost 35 million Yuan ($A7.6m) by selling 125 original paintings from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
• Police later recovered a further 18 paintings from the gallery’s Chief Librarian, said to be worth $A16.7m.
• Of the paintings stolen by Xiao was Ode to Motherland by 20^th century painter Qi Baishi, which was sold for $15.6m at an auction in 2012.
• In a strange twist, Xiao said he was shown pictures of his forgeries, but noticed the standard of the work was “very poor” – which meant that other fraudsters had subsequently stolen his paintings and substituted them with their own forgeries!
• In his defence, Xiao said the theft and forgery predated his employment and was commonplace at the gallery.
• It’s reported that Xiao has pleaded guilty to corruption and will be sentenced at a later date. 

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-22/chinese-librarian-replaced-artworks-with-own-fakes/6640952

http://mashable.com/2015/07/21/china-fine-art-fakes/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11753020/Chinese-librarian-replaced-140-masters-paintings-with-works-he-painted-himself.html

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