Rio de Janeiro
Widow swindled: A Brazilian woman and three accomplices were arrested last week on charges of conning her mother, the widow of a major art collector, out of $140 million in cash and paintings. Sabine Boghici’s mother, Geneviève Boghici, paid millions for “spiritual treatment” after being approached by phony psychics who claimed her daughter would die unless an evil spirit was exorcised. The psychics said some of the paintings in the family collection were cursed and needed to be removed and prayed over, and Sabine told her mother to comply. At the home of one suspect, police found 11 paintings crammed under a bed, including Brazilian modernist Tarsila do Amaral’s 1929 work Sol Poente, valued at $48.5 million.