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RedHanded

ShortHand: Wolfgang Beltracchi - The Greatest Art Fraud in History?

RedHanded

RedHanded

True Crime

4.519.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tens of millions of dollars flowed onto the canvas from the tip of Wolfgang Beltracchi’s brush. His talent? Unquestionable. His methods? Perfect. His ability to recreate the works of other artists? The greatest there has ever been.

Alongside his wife Helene, Wolfgang Beltrachhi sold an unknown number of paintings, passed off as the work of 20th-century artists, to some of the most respected galleries and collectors in the world. In the process they made millions of dollars, and created a scandal so deep that, even today, nobody wants to touch it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

When someone goes missing, the headlines focus on what happened.

0:05.0

But the truth often lives in the smallest details.

0:08.0

I'm Sarah Turney.

0:10.0

After my sister disappeared, I learned how those final hours, the last conversations, the last decisions can haunt families forever.

0:19.0

And I'm Courtney Nicole. After seeing crime impact my own family,

0:22.6

I've learned how overlooked moments,

0:24.6

missed red flags, and unanswered questions

0:26.6

can change everything.

0:28.6

Together, we're bringing those lived experiences into the work.

0:32.6

This is the final hours,

0:34.6

a crime house original powered by Pave Studios,

0:38.4

a podcast that puts the moments before a disappearance under a microscope.

0:43.2

Listen to and follow the final hours wherever you get your podcasts, new episodes every Monday.

0:48.5

Thank you. Hello.

1:07.0

Welcome to Short Hand.

1:08.8

Where we're going to get crafty.

1:10.6

You like art forges. I do like an art forge. I think I'm just not an arter. Actually, I did buy some art the other day. Oh, did you? Did you tell? I bought, they're called hate plates, and it's a little ceramic plate that's been framed, and it says, babes, it's not a hed hidden gem, it's Hackney.

1:28.0

Brilliant.

1:34.5

No, I'm here for a good arty time, but I would also be the first to say.

1:35.7

Not the first to say, actually.

1:40.5

I would be one of many to say that the art world can be very wanky.

1:46.9

In fact, some people would say that the world of high value art is actually a con. We talked about this at length in our episode where we were talking about how MBS, grandparents of Saudi Arabia,

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