Reported by Dalya Alberge

(Excerpt shared below. To read full report, go to: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/aug/22/lies-private-jets-missing-86m-inigo-philbrick-art-world-swindle)

As an art dealer in London and Miami, Inigo Philbrick had the Midas touch and lived the high life, with private jets, $5,000 bottles of wine and $7,000 suits. But in 2019 he was exposed as a serial swindler who had created one of the largest art frauds in history, a Ponzi-style web of lies that conned collectors and investors.

In 2022, aged 34, he was sentenced to seven years in a US prison, with two years of supervised release and an order “to pay forfeiture of $86,672,790”.

Released from prison partway through his sentence last year, he claims not to know where the $86m is and expresses regret rather than remorse in a forthcoming BBC documentary.

Asked whether he has the money, he replies with a grin: “No.”

He says: “I’m obviously in no position to do anything other than say how sorry I am. But there is a small part of me that thinks: what about all the good deals?”

He was interviewed for more than 14 hours for a two-part, two-hour BBC documentary, The Great Art Fraud, to be released next week.

The production also features Victoria Baker-Harber, a Made in Chelsea socialite with whom he fled Britain, hiding out on the Pacific island of Vanuatu, where he was eventually arrested by the FBI. She too downplays any wrongdoing: “You could say he’s a criminal, but who hasn’t done something illegal?”