A 48-year-old woman was arrested in Brazil for trying to swindle her 82-year-old mother, Genevieve Bogychi, wife of the late art collector Jean Bogychi, out of $142 million — in art, jewelry and cash.
This is reported by Reuters.
The arrest of Sabina Call Bogychi exposed a "disturbing network of fraud" that lasted for years and involved the involvement of "psychics". Only five people were arrested in the case, two more are wanted.
The scam began in 2020, when Genevieve was approached by a psychic with prophecies about her daughterʼs imminent death. The woman was then referred to several more psychics who, police said, used personal information provided by the daughter to trick the mother into sending her money to pay for "spiritual healing." In the following months, the perpetrators physically threatened Genevieve, and her daughter kept her at home for several months. Sabina and her accomplice, who pretended to be a psychic, took the paintings from her motherʼs house, claiming that they were cursed with negative energy that needed to be prayed away.
After almost a year of brutal treatment by Sabina and her accomplices, the widow decided to contact the police. During this period, 16 paintings were stolen from her, among them the works of famous Brazilian artists such as Cicero Diaz, Rubens Herhman and Alberto Guignard. Some of the paintings have already been sold, some have been found by the police.