Federal prosecutors allege that New York art dealer Ely Sakhai ran his forgery scheme like so: He would acquire a good-but-not-great work by a name Impressionist or post-Impressionist artist, have a persuasive copy (or two) made of the painting, sell the copy to an Asian client and auction the original in America or Europe. Think it through, and the plan’s flaws snap into focus. Some of those spurious canvases are bound to migrate from Asia to auction houses in New York and London. Besides, every fresh fake released to the market increases the odds that the original and its evil twin will cross paths with results far more awkward than two society ladies wearing the same couture gown to a charity ball. Nevertheless, the strategy worked for a long time and might have kept working if two of his victims had lacked the courage to step forward.

Sakhai almost had a close call in 2000 when officials at the Manhattan branches of Sotheby’s and Christie’s learned that they both had slated Gauguin’s 1885 canvas “Vase de Fleurs (Lilas)” for their May sales. Gauguin expert Sylvie Crussard evaluated the two and concluded that Christie’s had the bogus version; the house withdrew their “Vase” from its auction catalogue, and Sotheby’s sold the genuine painting on May 11, 2000, for $346,750. The word “almost” is necessary here because FBI agent James Wynne says the encounter neither revealed Sakhai’s shenanigans nor provided the proof authorities needed to charge him. (Wynne spent six years investigating the case, receiving the initial complaint against Sakhai in March 1998.) Moreover, Sakhai might never have known of the tale of the dueling Gauguins until he saw the federal indictment that was filed against him in 2004. He learned in 1997 that at least one of his copies had escaped from Asia when Christie’s asked to borrow Marie Laurencin’s undated canvas “Jeune Fille à la Mandoline,” which it had sold to him in 1990. According to an article in the International Foundation for Art Research Journal, the auction house wanted an expert to compare the painting to a second Laurencin of the same name that it had sold for $79,500 in New York in May 1997. It rescinded the sale in part because the auction house stock number markings on the backs of each painting did not match. The genuine painting’s number appeared on a Christie’s label that was affixed for the 1990 auction, while the fakers simply wrote the digits on the stretcher of the copy.

Another forger might have been scared straight by such an incident, but apparently Sakhai felt that he had little to fear; FBI officials suspect that he had been active since 1990 and that he might be responsible for hundreds of fakes. Sakhai seems to have sent his copies overseas on the assumption that his Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean marks would be too ashamed to publicly admit that they had been duped. Fortunately, two of his Japanese victims bravely deviated from the script and began assisting the FBI in 2002. “One guy had made a significant number of transactions, and the other had purchased (the false ‘Vase de Fleurs (Lilas)’),” Wynne says. “That established the motive cleanly.” News emerged later that Sotheby’s withdrew a second iteration of “Vase de Fleurs (Lilas)” from a November 1998 sale that belonged to a Japanese owner. The FBI did not mention this other copy in the federal case, but it seems consistent with Sakhai’s modus operandi.

In June 2004 a grand jury charged him with nine counts of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit those crimes. Sakhai pled guilty to two of the counts and was sentenced in July 2005 to 41 months in prison. Also, he was forced to forfeit 11 genuine artworks in his possession and pay more than $12.5 million in restitution. Though he closed his Manhattan gallery, a second gallery in Great Neck, Long Island, known as The Art Collection, remains open. Sakhai was released from the federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, Penn., earlier this year, and his sentence does not bar him from dealing art. More Sakhai forgeries must be out there, but the two dozen or so in the FBI’s possession have been put to good use: Wynne displays them in presentations on art crime.