Paintings worth millions of dollars have been seized from an art gallery in Sydney, the Australian Associated Press reports. Police raided the Ronald Coles Investment Gallery in Kenthurst and two private properties belonging to Coles in Kenthurst and Dural, confiscating 404 paintings worth more than $5 million (US$3.2 million).

Coles is an art dealer known for selling work by such Australian artists as Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Norman Lindsay, and D'Arcy W. Doyle. In the past few months, however, investors have begun complaining that they never received payments for the sale of their artwork. George Lusis, a retired businessman who has known Coles for over 20 years, said he has spent nearly a year in court trying to recover the $165,000 that he is owed.

Lusis consigned two paintings to Coles to be exhibited and sold at the gallery, but by October 2007 Lusis began to realize that "things didn't add up." Last March he became so concerned that he went to the gallery and removed another consigned work, valued at $200,000, himself. He brought a suit against Coles soon thereafter, but says he has received only a small payment from the dealer thus far.

Police have not yet brought charges against Coles, who told the Sun-Herald that he is facing "financial difficulties in difficult times."