Overview

• BBC Two will air The Great Art Fraud on 27 and 28 August, a two-part film drawn from more than 14 hours of interviews with Philbrick.
• Philbrick says he does not have the missing money and claims he does not know where the funds are.
• He was sentenced in 2022 to seven years in US prison with a $86,672,790 forfeiture for wire fraud and identity theft, then released early in 2024 after serving less than half his term.
• The documentary retraces a scheme that sold overlapping stakes in blue-chip art and collapsed after a fake Christie’s guarantee on a Rudolf Stingel sale, culminating in an FBI arrest in Vanuatu in 2020.
• Victoria Baker-Harber features in the film, was not charged, and Philbrick signals a desire to return to art dealing.