The filthy pond was stirred and the scum rose to the top

NOTICE TO MY READERS:

When I originally wrote this article in February 9, 2011. I made reference to Salim Khan being charged by the police for a wrongdoing allegedly committed by him. I learned recently that when the matter came to trial, he was acquitted of any wrongdoing. I have since revised this article and other than this particular notice, there is no reference to Salim Khan in this article because what I have said about his brothers does not apply to him.


If you have ever stirred the bottom of a filthy pond with a stick, you will see the scum rise to the surface. Well Brernie Madoff who ripped thousands of people off with his phony investment scheme was the pond and a number of people have tried to make money by fishing in that filthy pond and instead some of them have risen from the bottom of that pond as filthy scum.

In this article, I have going to tell you who some of them are and what they did. Two of the filthy scum I am writing about are Anwar and Azam Khan (brothers) whose prime residences are in the State of Virginia. Now I would be less than honest if I didn’t mention that they were filthy scum even before Madoff was discovered as a scam artist.

These two scumbags are in the auction business. Their auctions have a track record of duping the public across the United States and in Canada. In the last two decades, these two and at least one of their many companies have had their auctioneering licenses suspended or revoked in four states—Virginia, Kentucky, Washington, and Massachusetts. In Iowa they were forced to shut an auction down before it even opened. The brothers have been fined from $750 to $10,000 in some of those states.

On November 3, 1990 in Oregon, after officials caught them lying about the value and the source of the items sold, Oregon Assistant Attorney, General Eugene Ebersole and the Port of Portland Police swooped down on an itinerant rug auction scheduled to open on November 4th, before it opened and seized all of the merchandise. According to Mr. Atiyeh, ( a rug expert) “Very few of the rugs were actually Persian in origin, and the general quality of all the rugs was medium to low, with most being of low quality.” 

In 2002, Oregon’s Attorney General barred the two Khan brothers from doing business in the state, noting and I quote what he said to one of the brothers; “it appears you, your brother and your affiliated companies are engaged in a nationwide enterprise that systematically engages in unlawful conduct through the use of false advertising, misleading representations and fabrication of authentication documents in order to induce the sale of your merchandise.” unquote

In one of the Virginia cases, (2002) the state’s attorney general fined Anwar Khan $3,000 after a woman complained to state regulators that she paid more than $20,000 for a carpet she was led to believe belonged to President Eisenhower’s cabinet secretary and was worth $100,000. In fact, it was a less expensive carpet appraised at $10,800 that did not come from the secretary’s home, according to the Virginia Auctioneers Board. On one occasion in Virginia, these scumbags were disciplined for hiring temporary workers to act as ‘shills’ so that they could increase bids made by legitimate buyers.

Unfortunately, these two scumbags crossed into Canada and began doing the same thing to Canadians. For example, Toronto dentist Alan Aptekar attended one of their auctions at Copper Creek Golf Club in Kleinburg (near Toronto) last July and purchased two paintings for a total cost of more than $8,000. One supposedly was painted by post impressionist Marc Chagall and another painting by Peter Max, the wildly famous father of “Cosmic ‘60s Art.’

Suspicious after the purchase, Aptekar went to a reputable New York gallery to try and have the paintings authenticated. The sticker of authentication pasted onto the Chagall’s frame turned out to have been authenticated by a sham company and the art was a fake. The Peter Max painting was real but not worth the price the dentist paid for it. Aptekar complained about the Chagall painting and got a refund for both paintings. He still called police but was frustrated again when he was bounced between detachments. The police weren’t interested.

According to Ken McGregor, secretary of the Auctioneers Association of Ontario, auction fraud is considered by the police as being a consumer issue, not a crime, and police don’t take on many cases. Canada’s Competition Bureau investigates cases of misleading advertising but Aptekar did not know this. The Association has little or no recourse against bad auction houses because auctioneering regulation is rarely enforced by the province. Each municipality has a different protocol for issuing licenses and overall, it is quick and inexpensive for anyone – even someone who is a scam artist from outside Canada—to get an auctioneer’s license. It is for this reason that Ontario is fertile ground for auction problems. It’s so easy for scam artists to hold an auction anywhere in Canada and be gone within 24 hours.

These two scumbags recently brought their travelling road show of infamous celebrity auctions to the Greater Toronto Area despite being fined or shut down in at least seven states for running deceitful ads and using shady business practices.

When they went to Oakville, a half hour drive from Toronto, the two Khan brothers claimed to be selling articles from disgraced Wall Street financier Bernie Madoff and employees of the failed investment bank, Lehman brothers. The most recent of at least eight Ontario auctions was at an Oakville ballroom, advertised as “high calibre items” from the ‘Bernie Madoff Collection’ which included so-called paintings by famous artists and expensive jewelry etc. Khan advertisements, including those from the January auction in Oakville, typically listed big name artists, such as Picasso and Renoir, promises of ‘investment’ and high calibre items belonging to Madoff, etc., which was certain to raise consumer interest.

I thought it strange that they announced at that auction (no I didn’t attend it) that no one could look at the authentication of the items unless they bought the items first. That is not how legitimate auction houses work. That anomaly should have perked the senses of those attending the auction that something was wrong.

The Toronto Star dug into the two Khan brothers’ past and found that while they claim to sell rare and “extraordinary” works of art.

U.S. authorities have charged the two brothers for auctioning off ‘inexpensive copies with no collector’s value.’ It has turned out that none of the items sold at the action were from Bernie Madoff’s homes.

Pieces at the recent Oakville auction bore authentication stickers from an N. Isen, according to a Star reporter who attended. Nathan Isen, a Philadelphia art dealer and appraiser, said he’s been working with the Khan brothers for more than a decade. They’re “not out to scam anyone,” he said, and everything he authenticates is “100 per cent genuine authentic.” If this man is sticking with that statement then perhaps he is either naïve or dishonest.

Mary Broz-Vaughan, of the Virginia Auctioneers Board, which has investigated the brothers six times said, “They get away with so much. They game the system. ‘Shady,’ that’s a good word to describe what they do’.” unquote

How do they keep getting away with this? To R.L. Sparks, senior consultant for renown Martin Lawrence Galleries in New York; it appears that the two Khan bothers run with one business name until it gets shut down. “Then they change their name and start again.” ‘Berkeley Auctions’ is the name used most recently in Canada. The website for the company lists a Winnipeg address and boasts a pristine, 75-year combined business history. The Star checked and found a construction company listed at that location but not an auction house.

The two Khan brothers avoid criminal proceedings and protracted court battles by settling cases, disciplinary and consumer alike, immediately and out of court, Virginia official Broz-Vaughan said. “And they rarely, if ever, admit wrongdoing.” Broz-Vaughan added, “They treat fines and settlements as the cost of doing business. It takes care of the immediate problem and then they just do it again.”

Some of the items the two  Khan brothers sell are actually authentic, which U.S. regulators say makes the entire collection seem authentic. The problem facing potential customers is they can’t really be sure which items are legitimate and which are not.

The two Khan brothers claim they have an excellent track record. They speak of their company, ‘Citizens Union Auctions’, one of their companies as being “Impeccable customer service, a proven track record, and each and every customer being catered to with speed, efficiency and accuracy to ensure unparalleled customer satisfaction.” unquote

If this is so, then why are there so many complaints filed against them and why are governments shutting them down and punishing them with fines? The two Khan brothers’ spokesman. Fred Morris; dismissed the sanctions applied by U.S. officials as ‘lies’.


.As I see it, anyone who sells an item in an auction and claims that it is a legitimate and an authenticated item when in fact it is a fake, should be sent to prison. Fraud is fraud by any name and the governments in both the United States and Canada should charge these fraudsters with crimes of fraud and penalize them by awarding heavy punitive financial sentences that will bankrupt them and also send them to prison for at least five years for a first offence and ten years for a second offence. Further, if they are American criminals, they shouldn’t be permitted to enter Canada and if they are Canadian criminals, they shouldn’t be permitted to enter the United States. Both countries have enough scum rising to the surface of their ponds without having to have scum from other countries polluting their ponds.