How Todd White Caught an International Art Fraud Ring

When things get, you know, someone's in my face barking about something or, you know, you get in the art world, you get these people that are really big pants, but they would cower if you stood up. What do you mean in the art world? You know, you got publishers, you get gallery owners, they're just gonna bark at you and tell you the way it is and you're gonna do this. Do this? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Really? The art world? Oh, telling you, man. Tell me. Just, I've dealt with gallery owners who are like super bullies, who are like, you're gonna do this. You're gonna do this now and you're gonna get it to day tomorrow and you're gonna talk to you like that. All the time. And you go, hmm, I'm probably not gonna do any of that. And the thing is, I like to be super calm and it's almost like mind you, Jitsu, where I go, all that huffing and puffing you're doing doesn't affect me one bit. If you wanna go to sleep, I can accommodate that. But we're not gonna go down that road. And you know, I mean, this thing. That's interesting. And I would never have thought of the art world. It can be a dirty world. I've had galleries that knocked me off, my own galleries, start ripping me off and producing work of mine out the back door and signing my name. Like making prints of your shit? That's right. Wow. Fake signing your name? Yep. Yep. Yep. Caught them. Caught them. And then they said, oh, no, we got that from China and we're suing you. And they come after me. They got it from China? Yeah, they would make up shit. It was all made up, right? We caught them. Where was this gallery? It was in Huntington Beach. Really? Yeah. And we caught them and we shut it down hard and then they flipped the script. And that's when it was interesting because we were getting calls from a lot of media and press and they were asking me like, oh, you've been referred to as you and your band of thugs went down and took all your art, right? So what I did is I flipped it. I said, I like that title. I'm gonna do a painting called Band of Thugs. And I did this like old mobster thirties painting of all these dudes and thugs, Band of Thugs and I'm gonna make money off that. And it was- So did you have to go down there and get your art for them? Oh yeah, I went and took everything. I got my art back. I'm taking all of it out of here. You're no longer a pod white gallery. You're done. And it's soon withered and died after that. It drug out illegal problems and legal cases. How long did it last? About a year and a half. Is that the Band of Thugs? There it is. Look at that. Look at the guy missing an eye. Oh wow. Just that the Band of Thugs, right? You want a Band of Thugs? There it is. That's great. And that's like some, what's that fucking guy? The Butcher? Oh yeah, Bill the Butcher? Bill the Butcher from Gangs in New York. From Gangs in New York. Gangs in New York. Go to that picture again. Bill the Butcher. I mean that is kind of how they're painted like old timey bad people. Yeah. Yeah, it was funny because the Vanity Fair did an article on it. And they totally, it's funny because. Vanity Fair did an article on what? The whole scam and the whole bullshit. Really? Yeah. Because it made a lot of, you know, she sold a couple hundred thousand dollars in fake art out there. She sold it across international. As a woman? Yeah, as a woman. And international lines and it went. So she ripped you off to the tune of a couple hundred thousand bucks? Oh yeah. Wow. And it was funny because, you know, when it all came out and it was all court cases and stuff, I had galleries calling me because I got scared like, oh no. I had galleries calling me and they're like, hey, we want to carry you. This is two thousand twelve. Hey, we want to carry you. We want to. And I thought, what's this weird? Like all this bad stuff's happening. But why? So the guy calls me back up. Art publisher calls me and he goes, let me get this right. You're asking me, how come galleries want to carry you when this shit's going on? He made you DeNero in a Scorsese movie and you're wondering why. And I was like, he goes, play it up, live up to it. Go ahead. Go. Oh yeah. You can carry me and you know what'll happen if you don't pay on time. Oh no. And so it was just ridiculousness. But it, you know, look, truth prevailed and it worked out and they're gone and I'm still thriving. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips, easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. On Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.