In a small but significant win in the chronicles of art fraud, one of the associates of “notorious” Melbourne art dealer Peter Gant has been found in breach of the law for misleading or deceptive conduct in a failed investment scheme that used a cache of fake art as security.

Following a three-day civil trial in the County Court of Victoria, Toorak engineer Steven Drake was found to have induced a man he had befriended, semi-retired property developer Alex Stanowitsch, into an investment deal with Gant in which Stanowitsch ended up losing more than $300,000.