First generation Shona sculptors scam (Zimbabwe)

Introduction

This is the story of how I fell prey to a scam of people in Zimbabwe selling fake first generation sculptures, most notably Sailot William Ziira (also known as Sailot Ziira), the grandson from the famous sculptor Henry Munyaradzi, and Taguma Andrew Mukomberanwa (also known as Taguma Mukomberanwa), the son from the famous sculptor Nicholas Mukomberanwa. I have divided up the story in two parts, one about Sailot, and the second part about Taguma. These people are doing incredible damage to their heritage, and also to every sculptor in Zimbabwe as it undermines the trust. We need to collectively stop them. Please don't do any business with them.

Sailot William Ziira / Sailot Ziira

On Saturday September 11th 2021 I had my first contact with Sailot, after having been introduced to him by a sculptor I have known since 1999. This sculptor is also befriended with a buyer from USA, who got contacted by Sailot on Facebook about a white Zimbabwean collector named Ben Brumelaar selling his collection of mostly first generation sculptures. Ben was selling his collection because he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and was staying in South Africa now. Ofcourse, as we found out only later, this was all made up, and Ben didn't even exist. The gmail e-mail address we were using to communicate with Ben was very likely controlled by Sailot himself.

As the buyer from USA was very interested, he asked our mutual friend to check out the sculptures on the ground. Our mutual friend was taken to an office/house in Highlands, and a warehouse in Tynwald, where he was shown some impressive sculptures, most of the sculptures there were likely real. Later on it turned out that this collection was owned by a Chinese/Korean family, and not by Sailot or his fictive collector Ben Brumelaar. The Chinese/Korean family had also made a catalogue to commemorate their great collection, and Sailot was trying to sell me items from that catalogue. He was allowed to sell for them, but only after approval on price and piece. This is the part which he likely never did (getting approval). Later on the Chinese/Korean family told him he should stop selling from their collection, after they found out what had been going on.

My first buy was a Henry from the catalogue titled Lovers (likely a fake sold by Sailot before to the Chinese/Korean family), and a small Bernard Matemera. I transferred 1000 USD to him through WorldRemit. Here are some excerpts from the WhatsApp conversation:

This is the Henry from the catalogue I thought I was buying:

This is the first proof of payment:

Next I started negotiating on a large Fanizani sculpture, which turned out to be fake later on, also from the catalogue, and a sculpture by Sylvester Mubayi, again from the catalogue. This one was real but from 2020 so very recent, though Ben Brumelaar claimed his collection was bought between 1985 and 1999. We ended up agreeing on 1250 USD on these two pieces, and this is the second amount I transferred to him through Worldremit. Here are the two pieces and the proof of payment:

Sailot was saying they were still unboxing crates from the collection (later on he confirmed this is a story he made up, when you sell you need to sell with a story he explained to me), that is why I got some new pictures in every day. I had been asking him if there were any Brighton Sango pieces in the collection, since I don't have any pieces by him and really wanted to have some. He told me they found 3 Brighton Sango's in the crates and he would send me pictures soon. This is now Tuesday September 14th 2021. I got the pictures only on Friday September 17th, which I found out later is because Sailot got these ones from Tsindi Art Gallery along airport road, from a family member from Brighton Sango. He also needed time to do the alterations to one piece. After some swapping out the Muybayi for the Brighton Sango pieces, I ended up paying another 400 USD to Sailot. Here are some relevant parts of that conversation:

On Saturday I was chatting with someone who works at Tsindi gallery, and I was sharing with him enthusiastically that I had bought 3 pieces from Brighton Sango. I shared pictures with him, only to find out that the pieces had been collected by Sailot from the Tsindi Gallery a few days ago, and that they were not done by Brighton at all. I shared this with Sailot and also sent an e-mail to Ben since I was worried about the whole deal now, but they were trying to assure me that it's normal for family to contest pieces being sold. I had not yet seen actual evidence at this point, so it's more like one word against the other.

Over the weekend I got the actual picture proof, so I knew Sailot and "Ben" were lying to me for sure. Let me share the picture proof with you here:

The first piece I bought was altered afterwards (see the red marking which was taken off), the second piece was sold to me in the exact same condition, and has clear markings on the stone which are exactly the same on my piece, but the background in these pictures show clearly that it came from Tsindi Gallery.

I also got the contact details from someone in USA and someone in Switzerland who had been scammed by Sailot in the past, and after chatting with them I knew enough. This was a big scam, and it has been going on for many years. I found out that Sailot also sells from stock pictures, so if you get the picture checked by an expert he will confirm it's real, but then he either ships nothing at all, or he ships replicas I was told.

At this point he was trying to sell me 2 more Henrys, but knowing what I knew now I passed on it ofcourse. He also told me Mr Ben would come over by airplane from South Africa to Zimbabwe and he would clear everything up, he had old pictures and could arrange certification. But at this point I just wanted one thing, and that was my money back. Which up until today ofcourse has not happened, which is why I have written up the whole story to warn people and to prevent more victims.

After all the proof Sailot finally admitted to it:

Taguma Mukomberanwa

At the same time my friend first met with Sailot, he was also introduced to Taguma, who was allegedly selling the family collection of Nicholas Mukomberanwa sculptures. As I later found out, the family had sold the remaining pieces long time ago. I even got confirmation through the National Gallery that the piece that was sold to me was not by Nicholas, but again it was already too late and I had made the payment already.