Toothy tea leaf Angela Gulbenkian admits stealing £1.1 million and pleads guilty as fellow art crook Inigo Philbrick remains in the clink also
“Grifter heiress” Angela Gulbenkian once mused “life is art” on her Instagram page, but for her, after putting in a guilty plea “to scamming collectors out of art they never received,” she might opt to change that to “life is prison.”
Branded an “ultimate deceiver” alongside the equally audacious art broker Inigo Philbrick in The Steeple Times last June after legendary Chelsea interior designer Jane Morris of Percy Bass called out the crook for conning her firm also, Gulbenkian yesterday admitted two charges of theft at Southwark Crown Court.
Married to the great-grandnephew of the British-Armenian art collector and oil baron Calouste Gulbenkian – father of the legendary Nubar – this wicked wench used her surname to give herself a “veneer of respectability in her work as an art advisor” supposedly. She even used a fake familial foundation email to back up her “shady dealings” and exploited Instagram in a manner similar to Philbrick’s dopey baby mama and Made In Chelsea whining warbler, Victoria Baker Harber.
Sadly, however, for the many victims of this bleach blonde bimbo turned art lifter, it seems that those who handed Gulbenkian over a million pounds will find it hard to recover their funds according to Artnet. In an email provided to them, Metropolitan Police officer Duncan Graham declared: “A confiscation order was made for the amount stolen. At present no assets are present within the UK to realise this confiscation.”
Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Christopher Marinello of Art Recovery International, who is representing one of private jet loving Gulbenkian’s victims, added:
“[The plea] was not too surprising to us because we had her dead to rights. She signed a stipulation of settlement in 2018 where she acknowledged owing the money that she stole, and that she was going to pay it back, but of course she defaulted, so the trial would have been very quick.”
“We pursue these fraud cases vigorously, and I think it’s the only way you can do that. The art world is seeing a rise in fraud and we went after Gulbenkian and anything and everything she touched. We think that the way to take on these fraud cases is to be relentless, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Angela Gulbenkian (née Ischwang and deservedly nicknamed ‘Awful Ange’ by a former friend) – who has been on remand since being extradited from Portugal after failing to show up at court in May 2020 – will be sentenced on 28th July. She will subsequently potentially face trial over separate charges in relation to a case involving the sale of a Warhol portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at a later date. Long may this grubby grotbag rot!
