sell prepared fakes to collectors. Holmes recovers the original painting just before Moriarty makes a sale to a "Mr. Morgan". Holmes's interference with his plans convinces Moriarty that the detective must be eliminated. This con was mentioned in Leverage episode "The Two Live Crew Job", where a rival crew steals a painting that the Leverage Crew was looking for. Parker claims that this "Mona Lisa Variant" was the first con she learned and explains it for the viewing audience. In the film St Trinian's (2007), the girls use a similar scheme with the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring: They make a copy, "borrow" the original, sell the copy for £500 000, return the original (claiming to have found it in a Harvey Nichols changing room) and claim the £50 000 reward. In a deleted scene, they mention the original "Mona Lisa scam". In the psychological heist film Inception, Hotel Valferno is where the characters meet and fight. In the USA Network show White Collar, an episode "Copycat Caffrey" was mainly about the same basic con that Valfierno pulled. One of the plot revelations of the 1978 novel The Perfect Thief by Ronald Bass is that the character Voleur used this con, stealing a Goya painting so he could sell 32 forgeries to various buyers. The novel does not reference the original con by name. The Argentine novelist Martin Caparros published in 2004 the novel Valfierno, in which he reconstructs in fictional form the biography of the con man, as well as those of his accomplices and the historical milieu. Valfierno is the main character of the 2011 novel Stealing Mona Lisa, which is a fictional account of the theft by Carson Morton. In the heist film The Art of the Steal the story of de Valfierno is a significant plot point in the story. Aaron Elkins' 2018 art-world mystery A Long Time Coming begins with a significant recounting of the Valfierno story. See also Art forgery Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci References Argentine fraudsters Art thieves Art forgers 1850 births 1931 deaths