FBI "Sting" Fake Art

A man who posed as a member of the Saudi royal family and tried to sell a forged Rembrandt painting was sentenced to five months in federal prison and another five months of home confinement. Majed A. Ihmoud, 53, of St. Charles, Missouri, pleaded guilty in to conspiring to commit mail fraud for his role in the fake Rembrandt caper. Ihmoud is a Palestinian from Jordan who came to the U.S. in 1971 and has been a U.S. citizen since 1987, the FBI said. In the fake art scheme, Ihmoud dressed as a sheik and took a forgery of the "Man With the Golden Helmet," long believed to have been painted by Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn, to a St. Louis hotel. He expected to sell it for $2.8 million. "He said he had a Rembrandt for sale that had come out of the Middle East." The buyer was actually an undercover FBI agent. The real "Man With the Golden Helmet," which hangs in a Berlin museum, is likely not a Rembrandt either. In 1986, art experts concluded that an unknown artist in Rembrandt's company had painted it. For the full story - click the title Irish Art