Worcester native Christopher Boffoli's 'Champagne Scuba' print lost in scam

As a fine art, commercial and editorial photographer, Worcester native Christopher Boffoli said he has experienced online theft. "Most of the theft I deal with is online theft. One would think I would be used to theft," he said.

But Boffoli, who now lives in Seattle, is also apparently the victim of a physical theft of one of his photographs as a result of an attempted credit card refund scam at an art gallery in Boston in December.

Boffoli hasn't taken what happened to "Champagne Scuba" lightly, and his efforts have included hiring a private investigator.

"This is the first time I've had something physically stolen. Something I created with my own hands. And someone has that who doesn't deserve to have it," Boffoli said.

"I'm out $3,500. I'm a small-business person," he said.

'A credit card refund scam'

Boffoli is well-known for his Big Appetite series of fine art photographs that have tiny human figures set against images of food and drink that look giant in comparison.

A print of his photograph "Champagne Scuba," which has a human scuba diver in a glass of champagne, was one of three Boffoli prints that a man paid $10,000 for by credit cards to buy at the Arden Gallery on Newbury Street in Boston in December, Boffoli said. The gallery is the only one in Massachusetts that Boffoli works with, he said. Boffoli said the gallery told him that the man had seemed to be familiar with his work.

The man didn't take anything with him, and the next day called the gallery on the phone and asked for credit card refunds on the two other photographs. The gallery made the refunds to the purchasing cards, which upset the man because he wanted the refunds put on different accounts, Boffoli said.

Meanwhile, a mounted print of "Champagne Scuba," which had not been canceled by the man, was shipped by Boffoli to an address in Denver that the man gave to the gallery.

Weeks later, according to a Seattle Police Department report, the gallery found out the buyer's credit cards were stolen, including the one used to buy the piece that was shipped to Denver.

Boffoli writes on his BigAppetites website: "From what I’m told this is a credit card refund scam. Every detail of the original story, told by the buyer, likely was concocted. The purchase was made with multiple stolen credit card numbers and the intention was to direct the refunds to different credit card numbers that the criminal controlled, thus laundering the funds and preventing that money from being recovered. By issuing the refunds to the original form(s) of payment, via the original transaction numbers, the gallery owner unknowingly thwarted the scheme and left the criminal empty handed. The fact that they proceeded with the purchase of one of the three photographs was simply so the gallery owner would not grow suspicious had they asked to cancel and refund the entire order."

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Still, the gallery and Boffoli were out of luck with "Champagne Scuba."

Boffoli said the gallery did nothing wrong.

The contact information for the delivery of the print in Denver was "Gebe Gazanine" at an apartment complex. The Denver apartment complex, however, has not been cooperative, he said. Denver police have told him they have no record of a Gebe Gazanine.

"For all I know it went into a dumpster," Boffoli said of the print.

This isn't the first time something bizarre has happed with "Champagne Scuba." Goffoli noted that in 2021, a "deranged man" broke into the gallery in Boston and took and vandalized several pieces of work, including another "Champagne Scuba" piece, and was later apprehended by the Boston Police Department after an incident in which he threw the stolen artworks through a plate glass window at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

'Worcester looks a lot nicer'

Boffoli is originally from the Greendale neighborhood of Worcester and attended the former Indian Hill School and the former St. Peter-Marian High School. He earned a BFA from the College of Charleston in South Carolina and went on to postgraduate studies in literature at Harvard University.

He had returned to work in Worcester for a while in alumni relations at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

He moved to Seattle to take a similar position at the University of Washington Law School.

He hasn't been back to Worcester in a while, but stays in touch with things here online.

"Worcester looks a lot nicer and cleaner," he said.

"I never thought in a million years I'd be a visual artist," Boffoli said. His intentions instead were to be a writer. But "I was making these images. I never thought anyone would see them. They were seen by an editor in 2011 and went viral."

Now with his experiences with "Champagne Scuba" there is plenty he could write about.

But with the apparent December theft it looks as if "there are a lot of questions that will never be answered," Boffoli said.

He has contacted police in Denver, filed a police report in Seattle, has a private investigator in Denver and has shared his story with the media.

Boffoli writes on his website: "First, it is fairly clear that the man who walked into the gallery is not the same person that the photograph was shipped to. I suspect that Gebe Gazanine is merely a mule of some kind.  Investigators in Denver are looking into whether he is an unwitting participant or part of a wider organized crime network ..."

A gallery could be seen by a scammer as a good place to try to pull off a fraud because the transaction costs are typically higher there that at some other business venues, Boffoli said.

"I don't know. I think I've made more than an effort (to get 'Champagne Scuba' back). I couldn't let it go," he said.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Worcester native Christopher Boffoli's Champagne Scuba print lost in scam