The exhilarating story of an art fraudster’s downfall, by his former friend and partner
n 2020 Inigo Philbrick was arrested by the FBI on the Pacific island of Vanuatu and brought to Manhattan in handcuffs. He was wanted for his part in one of the biggest art frauds in history. Still only in his early 30s, he was accused of duping art investors into parting with around $86m. Lawsuits were piling up, accusing him of forging legal documents, double-dealing priceless artworks and refusing to pay enormous debts to people he still called friends, .
Whitfield positions himself as Boswell to Philbrick’s Johnson, Ryder to his Flyte, Carraway to his Gatsby. The way he tells it, he is the less sophisticated one whose job is to take notes while Philbrick pulls off a series of extraordinary stunts. At the start, these are nothing more than a series of blags by a young man in a hurry.
Chafing at being Philbrick’s underling, Whitfield splits in order to set up on his own. Not averse to a bit of brinkmanship, he nonetheless finds that he just doesn’t have the necessary nerves of steel to cut it in what sounds like a deeply unpleasant milieu. In a puddle of Xanax, champagne and terror, he is ordered by his mother to rehab to sort out his life and learn to love art again. During this time, he writes, Philbrick never bothers to return any of his calls or emails.
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