Inigo Philbrick’s life resembles a screenplay. Glittering highs, a spectacular deceit, and a supporting cast drawn straight from both the art world and the pages of celebrity magazines.

Once hailed as a prodigy of contemporary art dealing, he ended up branded a “mini Madoff”, jailed in the US for orchestrating one of the most audacious art frauds in recent memory. More recently, he made it back to the headlines for very different reasons – quietly marrying a socialite, with whom he shares two children. Here’s a look at his journey, from the beginning.

Born in England but raised in Connecticut, Philbrick seemed destined for the art world. His father was a respected museum director, his mother a Harvard-educated writer. After studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, he cut his teeth at Jay Jopling’s prestigious White Cube gallery. By his mid-20s, he had carved out a reputation as a dealer with an eye for contemporary art, particularly works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Rudolf Stingel.

By 2013, he had his own Mayfair gallery. Four years later, turnover was reported at $130m, and he expanded to Miami. By then, collectors already trusted him, investors courted him and he had a knack for making money from the booming secondary art market.

The scene was set for excess. Philbrick cultivated an image of glamour: private jets, £5,000 bottles of wine, holidays with artist friends like Kenny Schachter. And when he began dating Made in Chelsea’s Victoria Baker-Harber – one of the show’s sharp-tongued original stars – his life seemed to merge art-world prestige with TV-famous glitz.

Behind the facade, however, was a house of cards. Prosecutors later detailed how Philbrick defrauded clients of more than $86m (£60m) between 2016 and 2019. His methods were brazen – selling more than 100% of ownership stakes in artworks without telling investors; using the same painting as collateral for multiple loans; forging documents, including Christie’s invoices; inflating purchase prices to secure bigger investments.

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Humidity and Stingel’s photorealist portrait of Picasso were among the works caught up in his schemes. Victims included seasoned collectors, advisers, and financiers. Schachter, once a friend, lost over $1.5m.

The fraud was exposed in 2019, when whispers of shady dealings grew too loud. A lender demanded repayment of a $14m loan, and investors sued.

Philbrick fled to Vanuatu in the South Pacific, but the escape didn’t last. In June 2020, US agents arrested him on the island, spiriting him from paradise to a New York courtroom. In court, when Judge Sidney Stein asked him why he did it, Philbrick didn’t make up excuses. He said: “For the money, your honour.” In 2022, he was sentenced to seven years in prison, with an order to repay $86m.

Jail stripped away the glamour, but it didn’t erase his relationship with Victoria Baker-Harber, who was pregnant with their daughter Gaia when he was arrested. The socialite, raised in Belgravia and famous for her icy wit on E4, vowed to stand by him. She visited him, spoke about him on the show, and even joked about his prison uniform, saying “Orange is really not his colour.”

Philbrick served two years before being released on home detention. Soon after, in a low-key ceremony with no guests, he and Victoria quietly married. By 2024, he had an electronic tag, a young family and, improbably, a second chance.

This spring, Victoria announced they were expecting again. Posting on Instagram, she shared an image of Gaia holding ultrasound scans with the caption: “Big sister in the making…”. Their second daughter, Astra August Philbrick, was born on May 5.

Inigo, now 37, doesn’t exactly radiate remorse. In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, he argued his crimes were the product of “ambition and greed” rather than malice.

“Look, I didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “Nobody didn’t send their children to university. I don’t think that anyone in this whole story is guilty of much more than greed and ambition.”

The Great Art Fraud is on BBC Two on 27 and 28 August and on iPlayer.