History

Famous Counterfeit Schemes & Forgeries

Name: Famous Counterfeit Schemes & Forgeries
Creator: Community curated
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Hitler diaries, Vermeer forgeries, Frank Abagnale — which counterfeit or forgery scheme was the most audacious?

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Source:Community curated

Updated:3/7/2026

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Scheme / Forgery↕	Year↕	Forger↕	What Was Faked↕	Known For↕
Hitler Diaries	1983	Konrad Kujau	60 volumes of Adolf Hitler's personal diaries	Stern magazine paid $6M, world's media fooled, exposed within weeks by forensic ink analysis, massive scandal
Han van Meegeren's Vermeers	1937-1945	Han van Meegeren	Paintings by Johannes Vermeer	Dutch artist forged Vermeers so well he sold one to Hermann Göring, confessed to avoid treason charge, national hero
Frank Abagnale Jr.	1964-1969	Frank Abagnale Jr.	Checks, identities (pilot, doctor, lawyer)	Impersonated Pan Am pilot, passed $2.5M in bad checks, escaped custody twice, 'Catch Me If You Can' movie
Piltdown Man	1912	Unknown (possibly Charles Dawson)	Missing link human skull fossil	Fake skull fragments fooled scientists for 41 years, 'discovered' evolutionary missing link, exposed 1953
Operation Bernhard	1942-1945	Nazi SS (concentration camp prisoners)	British £5, £10, £20, £50 banknotes	Largest counterfeiting operation in history, prisoners forced to forge £132M, aimed to crash British economy
Elmyr de Hory's Art Forgeries	1946-1968	Elmyr de Hory	Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani paintings	Sold 1,000+ forged paintings to galleries worldwide, Orson Welles made documentary 'F for Fake' about him
Mark Hofmann's Mormon Forgeries	1980-1985	Mark Hofmann	Historical Mormon documents	Forged letters that threatened LDS Church history, committed two pipe bomb murders when scheme unraveled
Beltracchi Art Forgeries	1990s-2010	Wolfgang Beltracchi	Max Ernst, Fernand Léger, other modernists	Earned $45M+ selling forged paintings, used period-correct materials, caught by wrong titanium white pigment
Clifford Irving's Howard Hughes Autobiography	1971-1972	Clifford Irving	Authorized autobiography of Howard Hughes	McGraw-Hill paid $765K for fake Hughes memoir, Hughes himself phoned in to deny it, Irving went to prison
Superdollar (North Korean $100 Bills)	1989-present	North Korean government (alleged)	US $100 bills ('supernotes')	Near-perfect counterfeits detectable only by Secret Service, allegedly state-sponsored, forced US to redesign $100 bill
John Drewe & John Myatt Art Fraud	1986-1995	John Myatt (painter), John Drewe (mastermind)	200+ paintings: Giacometti, Braque, Chagall	Drewe infiltrated museum archives to plant fake provenance records, most damaging art fraud in 20th century UK
Shaun Greenhalgh's Forgeries	1989-2006	Shaun Greenhalgh (Bolton, England)	Egyptian statues, Gauguin ceramics, L.S. Lowry paintings	Self-taught forger in a garden shed, fooled British Museum and Christie's, caught by misspelling on an Assyrian relief
Wine Counterfeiting (Rudy Kurniawan)	2002-2012	Rudy Kurniawan	Rare Burgundy and Bordeaux wines	Sold $35M+ in fake vintage wines, mixed cheap wine and re-labeled bottles, 'Sour Grapes' documentary
Spanish Prisoner / Nigerian 419 Scam	16th century-present	Various confidence tricksters	Promise of treasure/inheritance for upfront fee	Oldest known advance-fee fraud (Spanish origin), evolved into Nigerian prince emails, still takes billions annually
Michelangelo's Sleeping Cupid Forgery	1496	Michelangelo Buonarroti	Ancient Roman sculpture	Young Michelangelo aged a sculpture to sell as Roman antique, when exposed it boosted his fame, forgery launched his career