British auction house boss is arrested in NYC over fraudulent sale of ‘world’s most expensive coin’

A British coin dealer has been charged in New York with the fraudulent sale of £3.2m of the world’s “rarest and most valuable” coin.

Richard Beale, owner of London-based auction house Roma Numismatics, allegedly falsified ownership records for two ancient coins he sold, including the gold Eid Mar (Ides of March) coin.

Struck to celebrate the assassination of Julius Caesar, this 2,000-year-old Roman coin was sold by Beale in October 2020 for a record $4.1 million, the highest price ever paid for an ancient coin at auction.

But now Beale, 38, is alleged to have falsified documents on the coin’s ownership history, known as its “provenance,” to make it more valuable and allow him to command a higher price for it.

In January, the coin dealer was charged with first-degree grand theft and first-degree felony possession of stolen property, in addition to eight other charges. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison.

Struck to celebrate the assassination of Julius Caesar, this 2,000-year-old Roman coin was sold by Beale in October 2020 for a record $4.1 million, the highest price ever paid for an ancient coin at auction.

A graduate of Durham University and a former captain in the British Army, Beale enjoyed a rapid rise to success when he founded Roma Numismatics in 2008 despite apparently having little prior connection to the world of coin trading.

“It was like a bolt of lightning,” Christopher Martin, president of the British Numismatic Trade Association, told ARTnews.

‘Within a year, he was selling millions of pounds worth of coins. That doesn’t happen, but that’s what happened with him. Where did he come from? Nobody really knew.

In 2014, Beale allegedly received the coveted Eid Mar coin to be sold by his ‘co-conspirator’ Italo Vecchi, an Italian coin dealer who was detained by US customs in 1992 for trying to smuggle coins. ancient Greeks in the country, according to the complaint. document.

A year later, Beale allegedly tried to sell the Eid Mar coin at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel, where he said it came from “an old Swiss collection,” a coded language within the antiquities trade that indicates its history is not known. You can verify.

Then, in 2020, Beale put the Eid Mar coin up for sale online at an upcoming Roma Numismatics auction with a provenance saying it was “from the collection of Baron Dominique de Chambrier.”

The professional coin dealer is also alleged to have falsified the provenance of the Sicily Naxos silver coin, minted around 430 BC. C., which Beale sold for $293,000 at the same auction as Eid Mar.

According to special agent Brenton Easter, the auction house owner “admitted to me that he paid for the provenance,” but said that “this was the first and only time that [he] I had never paid for the provenance.

When an informant told Beale before the auction that the coin’s provenance was false, Vecchi and Beale reportedly offered them 100,000 Swiss francs (£88,000) to sign the provenance documents, which was refused.

The professional coin dealer is also alleged to have falsified the provenance of the Sicilian Naxos silver coin, minted around 430 BC. C., which Beale sold for $293,000 at the same auction as Eid Mar.

It is further alleged that Beale purchased five coins in 2018 “from a convicted antiquities dealer” that came from the “Gaza Hoard,” a cache of ancient coins looted in the Gaza Strip in 2017 before being “smuggled into Israel and, ultimately to London’. .

The complaint states that Beale “sold these newly looted coins through Roma Numismatics with the false provenance “from a Canadian private collection”.”

Accounts published last month show Roma Numismatics had net assets worth just over £10m.

Beale is believed to be living in the UK and is due to appear in New York Criminal Court in May.

His lawyer and Roma Numismatics were contacted for comment.