Dealer Asher B. Edelman visited Art Basel Miami Beach yesterday with some very special companions: a dozen law enforcement agents.

New York–based dealer Asher B. Edelman visited the opening of Art Basel Miami Beach yesterday with 12 U.S. Marshals and police officers yesterday, helping the officials pick out paintings to seize at Galerie Gmurzynska’s booth as a result of a default judgment stemming from a law suit he filed this summer. Among the paintings acquired in the seizure are works by Yves Klein, Joan Miro, Edgar Degas, and Fernand Leger.

Earlier this year, Edelman and insurance company XL Specialty Insurance Corp. filed suit against Zurich-based Gmurzynska, alleging that the gallery damaged a Robert Ryman painting, Courier I (1985), that Edelman had consigned to the gallery for sale at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2007. The court ruled that the plaintiffs were owed $765,000, which Gmurzynska had not yet paid. The seized works will be auctioned to pay the default.

The value of the seized works amount to around $7 million, roughly 10 times the value of the judgment about Gmurzynska, the customary multiple when seizing property. As of press time, it was unclear whether Gmurzynska actually held title to confiscated works.

Despite the diminished booth, Gmurzynska was still attracting the attention of visitors and press with a show of works by action hero turned painter Sylvester Stallone.

Edelman reportedly had a busy day as well, still finding time to acquire some art the old-fashioned way, stopping by the booth of New York gallerist James Fuentes and purchasing an Agathe Snow sculpture depicting Homer Simpson.