How a little known government agency helped crack Canada’s biggest art fraud

In 2021, Mylène Choquette, an art analyst, was working at a photo lab in Ottawa when she was tasked with examining a painting allegedly created by famed Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau. As she peered beneath the surface of the artwork, Choquette noticed an outline of an animal figure, accompanied by the letters "R" and "LB" scattered across the canvas.

Upon closer inspection, she realized that these letters corresponded to a paint-by-numbers guide, indicating that the painting was a forgery. This discovery was part of what would become Canada's largest art fraud case, involving thousands of allegedly forged Morrisseau paintings that had infiltrated the country's art galleries and museums.