Was the Downfall of an Art Fraudster Like Inigo Philbrick Inevitable?

By September 2019, Loretta Würtenberger and Daniel Tümpel had realized something had gone very wrong.

The German husband and wife had given the American art dealer Inigo Philbrick millions of dollars through their company Fine Art Partners, with the understanding that Philbrick would purchase artworks, sell them at a profit and share the proceeds. They’d certainly given him the money, and the art had definitely been bought and sold, but recently their profits—actually, any money at all—had failed to materialize. The couple lawyered up.