Smuggled Basquiat Painting Found In Upper East Side Warehouse

An $8 million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat that had been smuggled out of Brazil and presumed missing has been found in an Upper East Side warehouse.

The 1982 acrylic oil collage, entitled "Hannibal," could now be returned to Brazil, where it is the subject of a court dispute.

The last-known owner of the painting is a Brazilian banker, Edemar Cid Ferreira, who is now serving a 21-year prison sentence in that country on fraud charges after his bank, Banco Santos, collapsed. A Brazilian court seized his art collection to pay off his debts, but the painting had already been smuggled out of the country.

The painting entered New York through John F. Kennedy International Airport, and customs authorities tracked it to a warehouse at 61st Street and Second Avenue.

A document filed by federal prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that outlines the painting's travels does not indicate who brought it here.

Basquiat, a graffiti artist who rose to fame during the New York City art scene in the 1980s, died of a drug overdose in 1988.