Man arrested in France for attempting to smuggle fake $1.3M da Vinci painting

A Spanish man attempting to export a counterfeit Leonardo da Vinci painting to Milan, Italy, was arrested in France following a two-year investigation, local authorities said.

The man, who was not identified, was intercepted at the border post of Modane, about 75 miles from Milan, with the painting inside his vehicle, Spain's National Police said in a news release Tuesday. An expired export permit stated the painting by Leonardo da Vinci titled "Portrait Giacomo Trivultio" was valued at approximately $1.43 million (1.3 million euros) and that its final destination was Milan.

An investigation into the painting, assumed to be fake, commenced in July 2022, the news release said, after National Police agents, through international police cooperation channels, received information that French customs service had located a pictorial work that was being exported from Spain to Milan in Italy.

While the man had a valid export permit for the painting, it had expired for several months, making it an illegal export. The permit's expiration also alerted custom officers at the Modane border, who then alerted Spanish police, and the man was located and arrested in Madrid as the alleged perpetrator of a smuggling crime, according to the news release.

The painting was later taken for an analysis to Museo Nacional del Prado , Spain's national art museum in Madrid, which determined the painting to be an imitation with a possible fraudulent intention.

The experts' report said the work was an imitation of Milanese portrait models from the late 15th and early 16th centuries and that it had no connection to Da Vinci and had been made with fraudulent intent, probably at the beginning of the 20th century.

As a result, the painting was only valued between $3,300 and $5,500 (3,000 and 5,000 euros).

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Man arrested in France for attempting to smuggle fake $1.3M da Vinci painting