Jouni Ranta and Veli Seppä talk about their art crimes in the new documentary series Mieletön vilppi.
Jouni Ranta sold fake art for 30 years. Four
Jouni Ranta says Nelonen in the fresh Crazy fraud in the documentary series about his dishonest career. Ranta traded art forgeries for thirty years.
Ranta talked extensively about his art stores already in 2017, when his and Marko Erola letter Sincere mind – How did I sell Finland full of fake art? was published.
At that time, Ranta told Iltalehti in an interview that he ended up selling paintings after leaving his previous job as a card fraudster. Ranta got his hands on numerous paintings by an artist from Pirkanmaa, which he sold on. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that Ranna found out that the man painted the paintings himself and signed them as works by famous artists.
In the now-published documentary series, this visual artist from Pirkanmaa also gets a name. She is Brother Seppathe son of a police officer.
Seppä got excited about visual arts in his twenties in 1980, when he was busily traveling between Sweden and Finland. Seppä bought boards in Sweden at a ridiculous price and sold them in Finland at a large profit.
Once he found a painting in an antique shop that at first glance he thought by Albert Edelfelt to paint. A blacksmith bought the painting, removed the artist’s signature from its lower corner and wrote A. Edelfelt on it himself. A criminal career had begun.
Brother Seppä painted art forgeries and sold them on. Four
The blacksmith was quickly caught in the act when he crossed the border with two boards bearing Edelfelt’s name in his bags. He was arrested and made to wait for the district court session in Sweden.
However, a miraculous turn of events saved Sepä. A researcher from Stockholm evaluated the boards and assured them that they are authentic. All charges were immediately dropped.
– I was free like a bird in the sky, which was wrong. I should have been convicted of that. But I couldn’t, Seppä recalls in the opening episode of the documentary series.
After his rescue, Seppä began to paint art forgeries himself.
Jouni Ranta met Veli Sepä in 1982. At the time, Ranta was an honest art dealer who wanted to sell more expensive paintings. The blacksmith knew the man’s background as a card fraudster.
The first painting was transferred from Sepa to Ranna’s possession in a remote parking lot in Forssa from the back of the car.
– If he had come to me then and told me that this is a fake, I wouldn’t have worried about it, says Ranta.
Crazy fraud today on Nelose at 20:00 & Ruudu. See all TV programs and broadcast times in Telku’s TV guide.
#crime #unpunished #Veli #tells
