Woman 'cons her mother out of £48m art by having psychic find "curse"'
Brazilian daughter ‘cons her mother out of £48million painting by using a fake psychic to convince her that it was “cursed”‘
- Sabine Coll Boghici allegedly swindled mother, 82, out of art worth £116million
- Celebrated painting Sol Poente (1949) by Tarsila do Amaral is worth nearly £50m
- Two-year scam saw psychic tell Genevieve Boghici that her daughter would die
- Psychics used personal information provided by daughter to spook mother: cops
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of swindling a painting worth nearly £50million from her 82-year-old mother by hiring a psychic to claim it was ‘cursed’.
Sabine Coll Boghici, 48, allegedly tricked Genevieve Boghici, whose late husband was an art collector, into handing over Sol Poente (1949) by Tarsila do Amaral.
The celebrated artwork worth £48million was previously exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
It’s part of a haul of cash, art and jewellery worth 724million reais (£116.3 million) allegedly defrauded by Sabine.
Her arrest has exposed a disturbing web of fraud that police say lasted years.
It even involved alleged psychics to swindle artwork by some of Brazil’s most emblematic painters, cops claim.
Police officers pose with Sol Poente by Tarsila do Amaral, which is worth £48million alone. Its owner, Genevieve Boghici, 82, was ‘swindled out of the painting’ by her daughter and psychics
Four people were arrested when officers in Brazil raided the home of a psychic. They were allegedly hired by the owner’s daughter to say the paintings were ‘cursed’
Four other people were also arrested and two others, Diana Rosa Aparecida Stanesco Vuletic and Slavko Vuletic, are on the run.
The scam began in 2020 when Genevieve was approached by a supposed psychic with prophecies of her daughter’s imminent death.
The victim was then taken to several more psychics, who police say used personal information provided by her daughter to scam her distraught mother into transferring money to pay for ‘spiritual treatment.’
In the months that followed, police allege the suspects physically threatened Genevieve and that she was kept at home for months by her daughter.
Sabine Coll Boghici was filmed being led out of her home during her arrest earlier this week
The iconic Brazilian artwork was exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2018
Sabine and an accomplice posing as a psychic ‘began to take the artwork from the (mother’s) house, claiming that the painting was cursed with something negative, with negative energy that needed to be prayed over,’ said Rio de Janeiro police officer Gilberto Ribeiro.
After almost a year of being mistreated by Sabine and her accomplices, the victim decided to go to the police.
Police say 16 paintings were stolen, including works by renowned Brazilian artists like Cicero Dias, Rubens Gerchman and Alberto Guignard.
Three pieces from iconic modernist painter Tarsila do Amaral – O Sono, Sol Poente and Pont Neuf – were also stolen, which together police appraised at a value of 700 million reais (£111.4million).
Amaral’s Sol Poente was among 11 paintings recovered Wednesday in a Rio de Janeiro police raid on one of the psychic’s homes.
Authorities have also recovered three paintings in Sao Paulo. Two were sold to a museum in Buenos Aires but have not yet been recovered.
Police say seven people are suspected of involvement in the years-long crime, facing charges of embezzlement, robbery, extortion, false imprisonment and criminal association.
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