(Source: AP Photo)

Italian police have uncovered a large-scale pan-European forgery ring manufacturing and selling fake artworks attributed to some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art, including Banksy, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

Some 38 people were investigated in Italy, Spain, France and Belgium on suspicion of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and the illegal sale of works of art, the paramilitary Carabinieri art team and the Pisa prosecutor’s office said in a joint statement.

Pisa’s chief prosecutor, Teresa Angela Camelio, said experts from the Banksy archive who collaborated in the investigation considered the operation “the greatest act of protection of Banksy’s work.”

Pest Control, the office representing the artist, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On its website, it says counterfeiting is common and urges people who want to buy Banksy pieces to be wary of “expensive fakes.”

Other supposedly forged artists included giants of 19th and 20th century art such as Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dalí, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian.

Investigators said they had seized more than 2,100 fake pieces, with a potential market value of about €200 million ($A327 million) and discovered six counterfeiting workshops, two of them in Tuscany, one in Venice and the rest in other parts of Europe.

They said their investigation began in 2023 when they confiscated about 200 fake pieces from the collection of a Pisa businessman, including a copy of a drawing by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani.

That led them to finding forgeries sold at auction houses across Italy and connecting them with a well-known group believed to specialize in Banksy and Warhol forgeries.

To boost their credentials, the anonymous suspects organized two Banksy exhibitions with a published catalog at prestigious venues in Mestre, near Venice, and Cortona, in Tuscany, investigators said.