Spanish citizen arrested in Madrid over sale of a fake Leonardo da Vinci

A Spanish citizen has been arrested in Madrid on suspicion of involvement in a deal to sell a fake Leonardo da Vinci. The fraudster planned to sell in Milan a portrait of the Italian military commander and patron of the arts Gian Giacomo Trivulzio for 1.4 million dollars. The deal would have gone ahead, had customs officers in Modane, on the border between France and Italy, not been alerted by the expired export licence for the painting. The incident attracted the attention of the authorities, and the picture was sent for examination to the Prado Museum. The museum's staff established that the portrait was a copy of Milanese portraits of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and that the painting itself had been made in the early 20th century; its value was assessed at 3,000 to 5,000 dollars