Police raid Dali show for 'fakes' June 29, 2004

An exhibition marking 100 years since Salvador Dali's birth has been closed by police in Helsinki, who seized works amid suspicions they were forged.

Finnish officials said police had been tipped off by art collectors who bought items they suspected were not genuine.

The confiscated works, including graphic prints, etchings, woodcuts and sculptures, are now being examined by art experts and police investigators.

There is a whole range of works which are suspicious

Jyrki Seppala, Helsinki Police

 A Helsinki police
 spokesman it was
 not yet known how many items were fake.

The private local company which organised the month-long exhibition to celebrate the Spanish surrealist was not available for comment.

Police investigator Jyrki Seppala said all 400 works displayed at the exhibition would be examined.

He said: "There is a whole range of works which are suspicious.

"For some of them, we might need help from outside the country. Others are obvious to us with just a magnifying glass."

He said if works did prove not to be genuine, possible future charges might include fraud, counterfeiting and copyright violations.

The display was put on to mark 100 years since Dali's birth in Figueres, near Barcelona, in May 1904. He died in 1989 of heart failure.