Taking advantage of the fact that fooling the art world can be just as profitable as stealing from it, forgers have been putting their artistry to illegal use for years.

One of the most famous forgers of the twentieth century, the Dutchman, Hans Van Meegeren, pulled off the ultimate hoax: his Vermeers were hailed by worldwide experts for years as the master’s best work. Rather than replicate an existing Vermeer, Meegeren had the nerve to create a new one. Of the forgery, ‘Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus’, the respected art historian, Abraham Bredius, wrote: “It is a wonderful moment in the life of a lover of art when he finds himself suddenly confronted with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master, untouched, on the original canvas, and without any restoration, just as it left the painter's studio! And what a picture!”

The main problem for Van Meegeren had been getting his oil paint to harden thoroughly – a 50-year process. Instead he mixed his pigments with a synthetic resin instead of oil and baked the canvas. He would also take an actual 17th century painting and remove most of the surface with pumice and water, being careful not to obliterate the network of cracks.

Responsible for pulling off one of the biggest art frauds of the 1980s and 90s were the English duo, John Drewe and John Myatt. While Drewe pulled the wool over the art world’s eyes, Myatt worked away creating more than 200 works by masters like Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Dubuffet, and Giacometti. Myatt used the most unlikely materials (house emulsion paints) and ‘weathered-look’ special effects (garden soil and vacuum dust). By selling Myatt’s paintings as newly rediscovered masterpieces, Drewe amassed up to £1.8m. He even donated £20,000 to the Tate, where leading officials trusted him as a "serious researcher."

Of course the scam wasn’t to last: Drewe was convicted in February 1999 and sentenced to six years in prison, although he served only two. Myatt served four months of a one-year sentence in a London prison, where he painted portraits of fellow prisoners, who paid him in phone cards.