A Florida court on May 30 sentenced Palm Beach art dealer Daniel Elie Bouaziz to twenty-seven months in federal prison for a money laundering scheme involving the sale of inauthentic works of art by such luminaries as as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Bouaziz was also ordered to pay a fine of $15,000; upon his release from prison, he will remain on probation for three years. Algerian-born Bouaziz, who holds dual French-Israeli citizenship, was in the United States on a B-2 visitor visa on New York Times reports; he will likely be deported upon his release.
Bouaziz sold infringing works, many of which were reproductions he had purchased for a song on the Internet, through three separate companies, including two Palm Beach galleries with Tony Worth Avenue addresses. The works were generally accompanied by false provenance bearing the stamp “Daniel Bouaziz, Certified International Fine Art Appraiser”; some documents bore forged signatures. Among the most spectacular sales attempted by the discredited dealer was that of a reproduction of Basquiat he had bought on the online platform LiveAuctioneers for $495 and offered for $12 million to an undercover FBI agent. Other sales included a Warhol reproduction for $100, which brought Bouaziz $85,000, and a work by Lichtenstein for a relatively cheap $25,000, to another undercover agent. The hideous gallerist’s transgressions came to light in December 2021, when the FBI and IRS raided his Danieli Fine Art and Galerie Danieli galleries; he was arrested in May 2022.
Despite his crimes, the sixty-nine-year-old Bouaziz had established a reputation for generosity and philanthropy and, as part of his defense, submitted more than fifty letters attesting to his character. To date, he has refunded $246,000 to those he defrauded; he promised to repay his eleven victims within forty-five days. His restitution hearing is scheduled for August 16.
