Mass Resignations, Lives Threatened as AFTAL is Hijacked During Behind the Scenes Forgery Investigation

Formed with the stated goal of stamping out fake autographs, AFTAL, the Autograph Fair Trade Alliance, attracted many of UK's and Europe's most reputable dealers as members. But while the vast majority of AFTAL dealers lived its stated goal, including a recognized expert used by law enforcement to testify against the forgery industry, AFTAL's two primary founders, Dominic Manning and Marc Mclennan, used it as cover to sell and authenticate thousands of forgeries. Manning has seized control of the organization after an AFTAL steering committee found that he sold hundreds of fake Michael Jackson autographs he claimed to have gotten in person. And like a mansion built on quicksand, AFTAL is crumbling.

As the legally listed head of AFTAL, Manning, owner of Behind the Scenes Autographs, disbanded the steering committee last week that was formed in December by boardmember Garry King after Manning and another boardmember were forced to resign. Manning then reportedly had AFTAL's lawyer slap a suppression order (gag order) on the former members of the committee, forbidding them to talk publicly about Manning's actions or their determination that the Michael Jacksons Manning sold were forgeries.

In the UK, even revealing that you are under a suppression order can have you held in contempt of court, so little information about it has come out and no public documents appear to be available. But the sudden silence of former steering members who used to speak to me confirms its existence in my mind.

Events have taken a violent turn. Several autograph dealers have reportedly been threatened by Manning or the source of the forgeries, Adrian Longden, and police reports have been filed. At least one victim is in fear of his life.

Roughly a third of AFTAL members have resigned or are in the process of doing so, and many more are anticipated to resign as they hear about the scandal.

Stay tuned for more. Autograph Magazine is preparing a list of current and former AFTAL dealers considered reputable. Please message me if you would like to be considered for this list.

For more details on AFTAL's actions and the Dominic Manning/Adrian Longden forgeries, read the following Autograph Magazine Live! discussions:

0 members like this

Comment by Rick Meyer on February 24, 2013 at 5:44pm: Of course he wont refund them. Would be like a thief just volunteering to give back what they stole.

AFTAL was an organization of how many reputable dealers? Very few if any have stepped forward to denounce the guy. Until a few have the stones to step forward and bust him or tell the whole story he is going to keep operating business as usual. Never seen so many others afraid to publicly state their opinions.

If I was an AFTAL dealer I could scratch that junk organization off my website fast enough. Damn sure wouldn't be writing them any more checks or taking any sort of instructions from them.

Comment by Gary Harvey on February 27, 2013 at 1:33pm: Mike

Im amazed at that statement, even the supplier has stated that perhaps they are fake, and now his distributor will not admit they are fake too. I need to ask around the UK for confirmation of this

Obviously there must be some kind of gagging order in place, as not one of the Interim board has spoken.

Maybe a gagging order like the one I got ! A gagging order personally delivered..thats a joke btw !!

Comment by Gary Harvey on February 27, 2013 at 1:35pm: Rich, it has not been confirmed yet, but I am asking about the UK

Comment by Gary Harvey on February 27, 2013 at 1:41pm: Rick,

personally speaking I have been threatened for commenting on these threads. I have not accused anyone of faking but still I have been threatened. Do you really think anyone is going to go live with this from the UK ?

I do beleive membership of the club are showing exactly how they feel with their resignations from the said club over the past few weeks.

Word is slowly getting about the UK about these stories, rumours are rife and I know of a lot of unrest

By not commenting does not mean UK collectors are unaware of what has gone on

Comment by Rich on March 26, 2013 at 10:56am: Steve, it might not be a bad idea to find a way to reboot this issue.

Comment by Grant Davis on March 26, 2013 at 2:35pm: Good idea Rich - apart from Gary, Jason and a cupla others it would appear to all that are outside the bounds of UK that the fakes are still there and being/will be sold in future and all swept under the carpet. This means that (along with the recent MJ Julians auction) that we will get these on the market and myself and a lot of others will pay big bucks for fakes.

Comment by Rich on March 26, 2013 at 2:41pm: At this stage of the game, I seriously doubt I'll ever consider purchasing any MJ.

Comment by Gary Harvey on April 3, 2013 at 1:22pm: Rich, sorry not been around to respond to this.

Busy at work ! lol

Dont really know if its worth re booting any of this to be honest. I went to a show recently and was approached by a member of a certain autograph club asking me with reference to the threats made against myself.

I told him the story and he told me he was not interested in whether the Jacksons or McCartneys were real or fake, as he had not bought any from anyone

This is amazing, i was shocked.

UK Dealers know about this and are not concerned ? Omg !!

Its heartbreaking, dubious items are out there in their 100s and as we know they will surface, time will show this. but the UK has turned off to this at the moment