Inigo Philbrick

Inigo August Philbrick (born April 23, 1987) is a British-American former art dealer and convicted fraudster. According to the FBI, Philbrick committed the largest art fraud in American history. He was convicted of wire fraud in May 2022 and was sentenced to seven years in prison and was ordered to forfeit $86.7 million. He was released from Federal Correctional Complex, Allenwood on January 31, 2024, having served three and a half years of his sentence from his arrest on June 11, 2020.

Early life Inigo Philbrick was born in Hackney, London. He is the son of Harry Philbrick, who was the director of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut, from 1996 to 2010, and Jane Polich Philbrick, a Barnard-educated playwright and artist. His maternal grandfather, Richard Polich, the son of Croatian immigrants, operated the Polich Tallix art foundry in Beacon, New York, which casts massive sculptures as well as the Oscar award statuettes.

Philbrick was educated at Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Connecticut, and graduated in 2005. He studied art at Goldsmiths, University of London, as his father did before him.

Career In 2006, Philbrick began an internship at London's White Cube gallery.

Philbrick was later determined to have engaged in various fraudulent practices. These practises included selling shares in a single piece of art to multiple investors resulting in the sold shares totaling more than 100 percent; selling artworks or using them as loan collateral without the knowledge of their owners; and providing "fraudulent" documents to "artificially inflate the value of artworks."

Arrest and imprisonment By late 2019, a number of civil lawsuits were filed against Philbrick for fraud. In October of that year, he defaulted on a $14m loan and fled the United States to Australia, Japan, and New Caledonia. Eventually in 2020, he settled into hiding in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Acting on a request from the U.S. Embassy in Papua New Guinea, Minister Kalsakau subsequently signed a removal order allowing for his deportation from the South Pacific Ocean nation.

He had been a fugitive from justice in the United States since October 2019, and U.S. Federal law enforcement agents subsequently took the art dealer into custody apprehending him shopping at a market with partner Victoria Baker-Harber.

Philbrick appeared in court via video link in Guam on June 15 where his charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft were read. Given his flight risk, the judge remanded him into custody and authorised Philbrick's transfer to the United States. American artist, academic and writer Kenny Schachter, who lost more than $1.5 million to Philbrick, called him a "very talented art dealer", a "mini Madoff" who had "sabotaged his entire life for short-term greed", and fell due to "a toxic mix of arrogance and alcohol". On 23 May 2022, he was sentenced by District Judge Sidney H. Stein to 84 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release and ordered to pay $86m in fraud restitution. He served his sentence at Federal Correctional Complex, Allenwood, alongside criminals including Martin Shkreli and James Holmes. Philbrick was released from prison in early 2024, following four years incarceration.

Personal life In 2016 Philbrick met and began a relationship with Francisca Mancini, a "Buenos Aires–born art adviser turned perfume maker".

Following release from prison, he married socialite Victoria Baker-Harber (daughter of Michael Baker-Harber), a regular on the British reality television show Made in Chelsea. The pair have a daughter, born in November 2020,