Smuggled Basquiat Painting Found

The New York Sun:

An $8 million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat that had been smuggled out of Brazil and presumed missing [since 2005] has been found in an Upper East Side warehouse.

The 1982 acrylic oil collage, entitled "Hannibal," could now be returned to Brazil, where it is the subject of a court dispute.

The last-known owner of the painting is a Brazilian banker, Edemar Cid Ferreira, who is now serving a 21-year prison sentence in that country on fraud charges after his bank, Banco Santos, collapsed. A Brazilian court seized his art collection to pay off his debts, but the painting had already been smuggled out of the country.

The painting entered New York through John F. Kennedy International Airport, and customs authorities tracked it to a warehouse at 61st Street and Second Avenue.

A document filed by federal prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that outlines the painting's travels does not indicate who brought it here.