Art Museum Scandal: Forgeries Replace Authentic Paintings

A worker at the Deutsches Museum in Munich stole four paintings from the collection, replaced them with forgeries, and sold the originals at auction to finance a luxurious lifestyle. The thief was sentenced to a commuted prison term of one year and nine months and ordered to repay the proceeds from the sale. The museum discovered the theft when an in-house appraiser noticed discrepancies in one of the paintings. The case bears similarities to a recent scandal at the British Museum involving a curator selling stolen items on eBay.