A Cyber-Scammer Tried to Sell the World’s Largest Statue for $4 Billion as a Bogus Coronavirus Fundraiser. It Didn’t Work

by admin

Apr 9, 2020

artnet

As countries around the world struggle to deal with the fallout
of a global pandemic, rumors have been swirling that India is
planning a fire sale of its Statue of Unity, the world’s
largest sculpture, to fund its fight against the novel
coronavirus.

But don’t get your hopes up: the listing posted to the online
marketplace OLX attempting to sell the nearly
600-foot-tall monument for $4 billion was, in fact, a fake. (That
price that would have shattered the $450 million record infamously
set by Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, heretofore
the world’s priciest work—though to be fair, the buyer would have
gotten substantially more for their buck.)

Police in India are now pressing charges in the case of the
attempted sale of the monument. The ad listing claimed that the
seller “needs to sell the Statue of Unity for Rs 30,000 crore to
meet the requirement of money to make hospitals and buy healthcare
equipment,” a police office told Indian news outlet NDTV.

There’s no indication of whether or not the listing for the work
attracted any interest from well-heeled collectors looking for the
ultimate trophy. (Nothing says, “I have disposable income” like “I
bought the world’s biggest statue, located on a remote river in
India inaccessible by public transportation.”)

Indian construction workers are seen at the plimth structure for the Statue Of Unity, the world's tallest statue, dedicated to Indian independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images.

Indian construction workers are seen at
the plinth structure for the Statue of Unity, the world’s
tallest statue, dedicated to Indian independence leader Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel. Photo by Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images.

The 597-foot-tall bronze statue, by Indian
sculptor Ram V. Sutar, was unveiled in the state of
Gujarat in 2018. It depicts Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the country’s
first deputy prime minister, who helped unite India after Partition
in 1947.

Despite impressive scale of the statue, the con artist trying to
sell it also overestimated its value by a full order of magnitude.
The monument cost just 29.9 billion rupees ($430 million) to
erect—a process that took four years, and involved 7,416,080 cubic
feet of cement, 25,000 tons of steel, and 1,700 tons of bronze.

The post A Cyber-Scammer Tried to Sell the World’s Largest
Statue for $4 Billion as a Bogus Coronavirus Fundraiser. It Didn’t
Work appeared first on artnet News.