Archive:Art student scam

The art student scam is a confidence trick in which young people pretend to be art students and try to sell mass-produced prints, which they represent to be paintings of their own production. In several early instances of the scam the sellers represented themselves as Israeli art students, but the scam is international with instances reported of Chinese, French, Chilean, and other nationalities pretending to be art students and the scam being reported in Australia, Canada, China, New Zealand and the United States since at least 2000. The art is often sold door-to-door, without the need for sham exhibition sites or art stores. In the early 2000's, "agents of the DEA, ATF, Air Force, Secret Service, FBI, and U.S. Marshals Service documented some 130 separate incidents of 'art student' encounters" across the United States, which raised unproven allegations of Israeli spying.

China

Many of the prints sold are mass produced in Asia. Sometimes referred to as "Hong Kong horrors", they are essentially posters mass-produced and printed on rough paper, making the lack of brush strokes less apparent. In a New Zealand scam, a man was believed to have travelled to Asia to purchase the prints. The approximate $200 sale price was reported to be divided up with $60 to the backpackers selling the prints, $20 to the local organizer, and $70-$110 retained by the ringleader.

In China, scammers approach tourists at popular attractions such as the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The scammer speaks English well enough to get into a conversation with the foreigner. The scammer claims to be an art student whose works are on display at a nearby exhibition which is part of the scam and sells mass-produced art reproductions at exorbitant prices. There are warnings about this scam in tourist guides.