04x25 - Gardner Museum Robbery

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, the biggest

art heist in history.

Some of the pieces

that were stolen

were priceless masterpieces.

Some have been taken carefully

and unscrewed out of frames.

Others have been cut out.

The men are tied

up with duct tape,

and they look like hell.

Half a billion dollars

in masterpieces gone

without a trace

and a three-decade

search down many paths,

all leading nowhere.

The thieves knew things that

only an insider would know.

This is not a guy who you

would pick out of a lineup

and say, oh yeah, he's some

kind of a criminal mastermind.

Now, we'll uncover

the top theories

behind this perfectly

planned heist.

If mobsters did steal it,

who did they steal it for?

Was he assassinated because

he knew something about

the Gardner Museum?

The fact that no one's

come forward after 33 years,

that's what makes this case one

of the world's

greatest mysteries.

Who orchestrated the

Gardner Heist and why?

8:15 AM on

Sunday, March 18th, 1990,

guards arrive for their shift

at the Isabella

Stewart Gardner Museum

and are shocked to find

the security desk empty.

They radio the overnight

guards but get no reply,

so they call the Boston Police.

The police find the

guards in the basement,

bound and handcuffed

to the pipes.

The men are tied

up with duct tape,

not only duct tape on

their hands and feet,

but also duct tape around

their face and their eyes,

and they look like hell.

The first thing the police did

after freeing the guards and

getting their statements,

was search the

museum for evidence.

What they discover is,

place has been robbed.

The police are shocked

at what they see

in two galleries.

Police find the

galleries in disarray,

with broken glass, paint

chips on the floor,

scraps of canvas

hanging to frames

with the paintings

themselves missing.

Some have been taken carefully

and unscrewed out of frames.

Others have been cut out.

One piece has also been taken

from a third gallery

known as the Blue Room.

It's the only piece taken

from the first floor

of the Garden Museum.

The theft is massive,

13 pieces of artwork valued

today at about $500 million.

The theft is the largest

unsolved art theft in history,

as well as the largest theft

of property in America.

The Gardner

Museum is a landmark in Boston,

modeled after a 15th

century Venetian palace.

It holds the private collection

of heiress and art patron,

Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Wanting to share her

collection with the public,

Gardner opened the

museum in 1903.

She spent about a decade

making it to her perfection.

And it was a perfection.

It was, when it opened,

the largest privately owned

collection of art in America.

After the robbery,

investigators take inventory

of the stolen items.

Many are one of a kind.

The pieces that were stolen

were priceless masterpieces.

One was a Rembrandt

seascape, known as

"A Storm Over the

Sea of Galilee."

It's the only seascape

Rembrandt ever did.

Another piece was

called "The Concert."

It was by Vermeer.

It's the only Vermeer

that's missing in the world.

Those two pieces alone

were valued at the time

of over $200 million.

Some of the other pieces

that they took were

a few Degas sketches,

a Manet called "Chez Tortoni,"

which was a painting.

They took the fitting off

of the first regimental flag

of Napoleon and also

a Chinese beaker.

Who could have pulled off

such a brazen heist and

how did they do it?

They really knew their way

around the sort of logistical

structure of the institution.

They were really familiar

with the institution's

security system.

And they navigated the galleries

in a way that was around

the motion detectors.

Not only

did the thieves navigate

the museum with ease,

they appear to know

the security systems.

When police initially are

investigating the crime scene,

they find that all of the

security footage tapes

have been taken,

and they also find

that printouts

of the motion detector

data have been removed.

The thieves are, we can assume,

believing that they're leaving

without any sort of trace

of where they've been

or what they've done.

The thieves knew things that

only an insider would know.

One of the first people

that they looked at

as an insider was Richard Abath,

who was a guard that night.

He was a security guard,

so he knew the security system

at the museum very well.

He was a 23-year-old,

self-described hippie

who had admitted to coming to

work inebriated several times.

He had done things

over that year

that should have

gotten him fired,

and he just got

away with things.

And I think he just

got lackadaisical.

Abath tells police

that on the night of the heist,

he noticed a pair of unusual

visitors outside of the museum

after closing time.

Rick looks up at the

closed circuit TV monitor,

there shows two men ringing

the doorbell in police uniform

and one of them says, "Open up.

We are here to investigate

a disturbance."

It was St. Patrick's

Day morning.

In other words, people

were partying in Boston.

There were revelers

out on the street.

So for two police officers

to show up at that point

was not that unusual.

But Rick's handbook says,

if someone comes

to the side door

and demands entrance and

you cannot get rid of them,

you call the police,

but he doesn't.

Abath's response

really wasn't the best.

He said that he allowed

these two gentlemen

to come in dressed

as police officers

because he believed that

they were Boston cops.

Abath doesn't follow

the museum's clear security

protocols that night,

but what he does do

is radio his colleague

to come to the security desk

because the two police

seemingly want to arrest him.

The two police officers say

to Rick in a sort

of a offhand way,

but convincing to Rick, "Hey,

you look familiar to us.

Do we have a warrant

for your arrest?"

And as Rick explains it, he

thought, "I better go along

with what they're

asking me to do,"

which was to step around away

from the back of the table

and come out in front of us

so we can get a

good look at you.

These two police

officers lure Abath

and his co-night guard away

from their security desk,

which would be the only place

that they'd easily be

able to call for help

from the outside world.

As soon as he's

within proximity,

they immediately place

handcuffs on him.

And when the second

security guard comes in,

he too is cuffed.

So now these two are

totally confused.

They're wondering why are these

police officers arresting them,

and it's at that moment that one

of the police officers says,

"This is a robbery."

They lead him to the

basement of the museum,

which was very odd because,

how would they even know that

the museum had a basement?

And then they strategically

placed them about 50 feet apart.

They duct tape them

in an odd manner,

allowing one of the

security guards the ability

to kind of peek through the

spaces in between the duct tape.

The robbers say to both

guards before leaving them,

"Keep your mouth shut

and you'll get your

reward in a year's time."

The thieves leave

the basement around 1:35 AM.

After waiting an hour or so

to ensure the guards

are still tied up,

they exit the museum.

But first, they take

the security tape

and a printout of the

museum's motion detectors.

They make one crucial mistake.

The thieves knew to

take the security tape

and to take the printout,

but they didn't realize

that the hard drive had

stored the movements also

so it could be reproduced,

and that's how we know

where they went that night.

Investigators

can now track all the movement

through the museum that night,

beginning in the gallery

known as the Dutch Room.

The thieves travel

both to the Dutch Room

and the Short Gallery.

The Dutch Room is

where they're taking

five important old master works,

including the concert

and Rembrandt's "Storm

on the Sea of Galilee."

And the Short Gallery

is where they're taking

most of the Degas

works on paper,

as well as the Eagle Finial.

In all,

the thieves were in the

museum for 81 minutes,

leaving at 2:45 AM.

When the police look at

the motion detector data,

they find something

highly suspicious.

The only information shown

on the motion detector data

in the Blue Room comes

from hours before,

when Abath admits

that that was most likely

him doing his rounds.

To me, it's the mystery

within the mystery.

It's the theft within the theft.

Why didn't their footsteps

show up in that room?

Rick was in that room before

the bad guys showed up.

Could he have taken

it off the wall?

Investigators learn more

about Abath's actions that

night that raise alarm bells.

We know that Rick Abath opened

and closed the Palace Road door.

Why would he do that?

That was not part of his rounds.

That was not part of

the usual protocol.

It looks awfully fishy.

Was he signaling the robbers

it's a good time to come?

Despite their suspicions,

investigators never

amass enough evidence

to charge Abath with the crime.

This is a man who has lived

under a cloud of suspicion

for his entire life,

but this is not a guy who you

would pick out of a lineup

and say, "Oh yeah, he's some

kind of a criminal mastermind."

Ultimately,

he moves out of the state,

finishes his college degree,

and works as a teacher's aide.

Then in 2015, he's

back in the spotlight

after the FBI released a

security video from the museum,

taken a night before the theft.

- The FBI video shows Mr.

- Abath buzzing in a person

to talk to him at

the security desk,

which was against the rules.

So it took many years,

almost 25 years for the

FBI to release that video.

The museum and the FBI say,

"We want to know who

this person was."

Rick was asked, "Do you

know who this was?"

Rick says, "I don't

remember it."

Abath is giving inconsistent

statements to the officers

and they're not

buying any of it,

but eventually he's given

two polygraphs and he passes.

So if the theft

was done by an insider,

who is responsible?

Whether or not Abath

was the inside man,

we know that this was not

one person acting alone.

This was a group

of people planning

and executing this heist.

After failing

to find enough evidence

to charge a night security

guard at the Gardner Museum,

investigators looking

into the case are stumped.

The FBI releases sketches

of the thieves posing

as Boston Police

in hopes of identifying

the suspects.

Who were these two men?

And how did they

carry out the theft

in the very particular

way in which they did?

The sketches

reveal the thieves' disguises

and present a new angle

in the investigation.

In any type of a crime,

the first thing investigators

are gonna do is look

at the forensic evidence that's

left behind at the scene,

interview individuals

who are witnesses,

and then look at

other situations

that occurred in that area

that are like that, other art

thefts that were unsolved.

Those are gonna be

your primary suspects

after the insiders.

Investigators are

really gonna look

for key characteristics

that may be similar to

other crimes committed,

whether they involve art

or a similar M.O. by

particular criminals.

Investigators looked at

other crimes in the area.

In one particular case,

a failed theft at

a similar museum.

Like the Gardner Museum,

the Hyde Museum Collection in

the collector's former home

and the art is very

similar, high value.

The Hyde Collection

has old masters combined

with French impressionist works.

It's often been called

the Mini Gardner

and is another Palazzo style

museum in Upstate New York.

On December 22nd, 1980,

10 years before

the Gardner Heist,

two crooks are on their

way to rob the Hyde Museum

when they run into trouble.

Two men hijack a FedEx truck.

They subdue the driver

in the back using

duct tape and ether.

They tell her that if she

behaves and cooperates,

that she will be rewarded.

Some of the tools

they brought along

with them were

handcuffs, duct tape,

and knives to cut the

paintings out of their frames,

just like in the Gardner Heist.

The operation is called off

when the thieves get

caught in traffic

and realize they can't

get to the Hyde Collection

before closing time.

Authorities eventually

catch up to the hijackers.

The FedEx driver is

able to ID the two men

who subdued her in

the back of the truck.

They are the con

artist, Brian McDevitt,

and his co-conspirator,

Michael Morey.

The two men are

convicted of kidnapping

and attempted grand larceny

and both spend several

months in prison.

Both men are out of prison

at the time of

the Gardner Heist,

but the methodology in

both cases is similar.

While investigators are

looking into the Gardner Heist,

they're again drawn

to McDevitt and Morey

due to the similarities

between their attempted

robbery of the Hyde Collection

and the robbery of

the Gardner Heist.

The use of duct tape to

bind the FedEx driver

and the duct tape used

to bind the night guards,

the tools to remove

paintings from their frames,

as well as this promise

of if you behave,

you will be rewarded.

So Michael Morey,

he had an alibi.

The other guy, Brian

McDevitt, not so much.

He didn't have an alibi,

and he was in the

Boston area that night.

The FBI spends more than a year

investigating Brian McDevitt.

Brian McDevitt was

a real character.

He had a history of

fraudulent activity.

At one point, he even said

he was a member of the

Vanderbilt family.

Later, he moved to Los Angeles,

he joined the Writer's

Guild of America and said,

"I'm a successful screenwriter."

In an FBI interview,

Morey told agents that McDevitt

used the exact same language

in the Hyde attempt that was

used during the Gardner Heist.

We know where you live,

but if you behave,

you will be rewarded.

The FBI are able

to draw a connection

between McDevitt and

the Gardner Heist,

given that McDevitt himself

has a strong Boston accent,

which is consistent

with the description

that Abath provided

of the two thieves,

and McDevitt himself also seems

to resemble one of the

early police sketches.

In 1992, Brian McDevitt agrees

to talk to the FBI.

McDevitt sits down with

the FBI several times,

each time insisting

that he's had nothing

to do with the Gardner Heist

despite the fact that he's

not able to produce an alibi.

The FBI also interviews a woman

who Brian McDevitt was dating

at the time of the heist.

McDevitt had this girlfriend

who was over the moon with him.

I mean, she thought he was

like an artistic genius.

He seemed very well-connected.

He had told his girlfriend

he was going down

to New York the

weekend of the heist

to attend this big soiree

put on by the Writer's Guild.

Upon his return,

he told her that the

FBI may question her

and that if they did,

she was to tell them

that they had spent

St. Patrick's Day

weekend together,

which she ultimately

refuses to do.

And McDevitt became very irate

at the fact that she

refused to lie for him.

She learns that there was

no Writer's Guild event

over the weekend of

St. Patrick's Day.

She learns that he may not

even be a screenwriter.

McDevitt tells her that

he was actually involved

and had been paid to

commit the Gardner Heist

and that he has to

flee the country.

She goes back and

writes in her diary

that she can't believe

what he just told her,

and she doesn't know

how to process it.

And she can't even handle it.

And it's so huge she

can't even write it down.

All that's in her diary is that

Brian did a terrible thing.

He admitted it and I don't

know how to process it.

Feeling uncomfortable

and overwhelmed by the

amount of information

that's been given

to her by McDevitt,

she tells the FBI.

When the FBI tries to

find Brian McDevitt again,

he's gone.

He fled to Medellin, Colombia.

The FBI were able

to trace him there,

but he d*ed before they were

able to interview him again.

McDevitt's death

brought investigators

to another standstill with

many questions remaining.

Was McDevitt himself actually

involved in the theft

or was he just pretending

to have been involved

to impress anyone

who would listen?

But McDevitt isn't the only

compelling suspect in

this complicated case.

In 1997, seven

years after the Gardner Heist,

a reporter from the Boston

Herald gets a strange call

from a man who claims to

have information on the case.

His name is William

Youngworth, Jr.

He's an antique dealer

with a criminal past,

very unscrupulous.

Youngworth contacts a

reporter at the Boston Herald.

He makes it clear that he

didn't steal the paintings,

but he says, "I know

where the paintings

from the Gardner Heist are

and I can help you

facilitate their return."

Youngworth told him that he

had not stolen the paintings,

but he could supply

them to be recovered.

He tells reporters that

he would be willing

to return these pieces

to law enforcement if

the conditions are right,

those conditions being receipt

of the $5 million reward,

complete immunity for anything

surrounding the Gardner Heist,

and leniency for himself on

a separate unrelated case.

And the FBI is

saying to Youngworth,

"You've got to

cooperate with us."

Youngworth says,

"I will cooperate

if you give into my

list of demands."

In a surprising twist,

one of Youngworth's

demands is the release

of his good friend Myles

Connor from prison.

At the time,

Connor is serving 10 years

for transporting stolen art.

And Myles is a very cunning guy.

He's very well-known to

the police around Boston,

both for art and

antiques thefts.

Youngworth and

Connor have history.

They've been involved

in criminality together,

and it's quite possible

that all of this information

that Youngworth is offering

is nothing more than a scam

to come up with money.

Myles Connor is a name

that came up very early

in the investigation.

He was and probably still is one

of the most notorious

art thieves in America.

In the 1970s,

he was caught by an undercover

FBI agent in an attempt

to sell stolen Andrew

Wyeth artworks.

Now, at the same time,

around 1975 while

he's out on bail,

Connor and some associates walk

into the Museum of

Fine Arts in Boston

and they steal a Rembrandt.

Myles calls his lawyer

a year later and says,

"Tell the FBI,

if they want to get their

Rembrandt back from the MFA,

I'll give it back to them,

but they gotta do a deal

with me, I want a deal."

He gets the painting

to be brought back.

He goes into court.

He allows him to serve

the terms together

as one eight-year sentence.

So Myles thinks he's

got some leeway.

Investigators wonder,

could Connor be connected to

the infamous Gardner Heist?

If so, Youngworth isn't talking.

Youngworth doesn't

give much information

because he has a

list of demands.

Before he fully cooperates,

he tells the FBI, "If you

fulfill these demands,

I will get you

back the paintings

that you're looking for."

Both the FBI and

the Boston Herald reporter

are skeptical and demand proof

that William Youngworth really

does have the paintings.

Subsequently, the two men

set up a clandestine meeting.

The Boston Herald reporter

is picked up by Youngworth

in the middle of the night

and driven to a

warehouse in Brooklyn.

In this warehouse, Youngworth

unfurls a painting

that the two men then

examine by flashlight.

The Herald Reporter believes

he has seen Rembrandt's

"Storm on the Sea of Galilee."

He then returns to Boston

where he publishes an article

called "We've Seen It!"

where they demand

further evidence,

but argue that they have

seen and know the location

of at least one of the

Gardner Heist paintings.

The Herald's

reporter stays on the story

and demands even more proof.

Youngworth produces paint chips

from what he claims

to be the Rembrandt.

And paint chips

are very distinct

from different time periods.

Tracing something like

lead can actually tell you

what era a paint was made.

The Herald then

turns over the paint flakes

to the FBI for more

detailed analysis.

In doing this

scientific testing,

we're able to determine

that the paint chips themselves

are about 350 years old

and the materials being

used in those paint chips

are consistent with

the place and time

in which both Rembrandt

and Vermeer are painting.

But in an interesting

turn of events,

they do not match the

Rembrandt painting.

Despite being

dated to the same era,

the paint chips Youngworth

turned over were found

to contain oils and

pigments not found

in the museum's

stolen Rembrandt.

The Gardner Museum felt

the investigators didn't do

a thorough investigation,

that they didn't

compare those chips

to every item that

had been stolen.

There was never

a comparison done

to see if, possibly,

they could have come

from the Vermeer

who was a contemporary

of Rembrandt.

At the end of the day,

we don't know where Youngworth

procured these paint chips.

All we know is that

they don't match

Rembrandt's "Storm on

the Sea of Galilee."

The officials from the Gardner

Museum were left wondering

whether or not investigators

could have done more

in terms of the comparison

of the chips that were found

and have to ask,

was this possible

that Youngworth did in

fact have the Rembrandt?

Neither Youngworth

nor Connor are charged

in the Gardner case,

but Connor claims he

has info to share.

He said he thought about

robbing the Gardner Museum.

He also said he never did it it,

but he did say he

thinks he knows who did.

The Gardner Museum Heist

is a high stakes crime,

but not a violent one.

The thieves get in and out

without shedding a

single drop of blood.

But as the FBI goes hunting

for suspects in

Boston's underworld,

they start to realize

that a fortune

that big may be

worth k*lling over.

Boston in the '90s is one

where organized crime

continues to be rampant.

And with organized

crime also come

law enforcement informants

working with law enforcement

to help them solve crimes and

gain leniency on the crimes

that they themselves

are committing.

Notorious art thief

Myles Connor is no stranger

to making deals with the FBI.

And he points them to a

dizzying new array of suspects.

Now, in around 1991,

he hears that connections

that he has within the

mob are going around,

bragging about having

committed the Gardner Heist

without him.

While in prison, Myles

Connor states today

that he was visited

by an old friend

who introduced him

to Robert Donati.

Now, Robert Donati

was a soldier,

a worker with the

patriarchal mafia family

out of New England.

Back in 1974, Connor says

that he cased out

the Gardner Museum

with Robert Donati.

Didn't actually follow

through with the break in.

Later in jail,

he finds out that Donati

actually went ahead

and robbed the museum

anyway without him.

And Donati hasn't

been especially discreet.

Bobby Donati is

going around town,

bragging about having

committed the Gardner Heist

and having buried the paintings.

The speculation is

that Donati is planning

to ransom the paintings

back to law enforcement

to help free a fellow mobster.

He wasn't doing it for money.

He was doing it for a friend.

Donati, I guess, believed that

if he stole these paintings,

maybe he could make a deal

to try to get this

friend's sentence reduced.

With Donati, there's

another red flag.

He was caught with

police paraphernalia.

That's another connection

to the Gardner case.

In 1991, about a year

after the Gardner Heist,

Robert Donati disappears.

Robert Donati was found

in the trunk of his car.

His throat was

slashed so deeply,

he was almost decapitated.

There was a g*ng w*r going on.

Was he assassinated

because of the g*ng w*r

or was he assassinated

because he knew something

about the Gardner Museum

and he had the art

in his possession?

It's silly to think

that beyond a robbery,

that this could now also

be tied to a m*rder.

After the hit on Donati,

the FBI scours any

properties attached to him,

but never finds any

of the Gardner works.

He could have put

those paintings anywhere.

I mean, these guys had safe

houses all over the place

and perhaps the knowledge

of where he put

them d*ed with him.

Donati may very well have

stashed some of those paintings.

And if what he said was true,

then the location of those

paintings d*ed with him.

Now, there've been rumors of

a painting showing up here

and a painting showing up there,

but every time law

enforcement tries

to follow up on those leads,

they come up with nothing.

But Donati's

death doesn't stop the FBI

from investigating more

Boston crime family members.

The trail leads next to a friend

of Donati named Bobby Gentile.

Bobby Gentile was friends

with a lot of different

Boston area mobsters.

He knew Bobby Donati.

He knew a lot of

these characters.

And it's believed

that at some point,

he took possession of at

least two of these paintings.

So a federal judge

authorizes a search warrant

for Bobby Gentile's home.

And inside Gentile's house

is a list of all the items

that have been stolen

from the Gardner Museum

with little price

points on them.

And next to the price points

is the Boston Herald article

from the day after the theft.

So after Gentile's

house is raided,

he of course, remains a suspect.

The investigation on

Gentile remained open

for three years.

He ultimately sold a g*n

to an undercover FBI agent.

He received a five-year sentence

for a felony possession

of a firearm.

The FBI tried to flip him,

tried to get him to come in

and talk about the paintings

that he supposedly had,

but he never would

speak about it.

Robert Gentile never

admitted anything

to do with the Gardner Heist.

He did his time, got

out of jail in 2019

and d*ed in 2021

at the age of 85.

In 2013, while

Gentile is still alive,

tips from the FBI informants

point investigators

to other members

of organized crime,

a pair of low level gangsters

named George Reissfelder

and Leonard Dimuzio.

Both Reissfelder and

Dimuzio appear similar

to the early sketches of

the two police officers,

and they also have long

rap sheets of theft

and other sorts of violent

crime in the Boston area.

The FBI did background

investigations.

And they were successful in

getting some of the relatives

of Reissfelder to talk to them.

During the background

investigation

of George Reissfelder,

they sit down with

his brother Richard.

They show him a picture book,

and he immediately pointed

to the "Chez Tortoni"

and he said, "Hey,

I've seen that.

It was in my

brother's apartment."

So in addition to

Reissfelder being mobbed up,

as they say, he was also

linked to the robbery

or the possession of

one of the paintings.

But soon, the investigation

hits a familiar snag.

Reissfelder meets

an untimely death.

He dies of a cocaine overdose.

Investigators go to his home,

they look for the painting.

They find nothing.

Shortly after George

Reissfelder d*ed,

his longtime criminal partner,

Leonard Dimuzio, he disappeared.

And then a few months later,

he was found dead as well.

Four possible

suspects all turning up dead,

just as investigators close in.

To some, it seems like

more than a coincidence.

There were many mafia

members who were associated,

involved around

the Gardner Heist,

and it would be in

their best interest

to not speak on

that criminality.

Bad things could happen

if they shared information

that they know.

The silence wasn't

necessarily surprising.

That's a part of mob culture.

But if we speculate about

where the paintings could be,

they could be anywhere.

They could be buried

in the ground,

they could be in a storage unit.

They could be in

somebody's house

or on a boat somewhere.

We never know.

Much of the

Gardner Heist investigation has

focused on the thieves

who stole the artwork

from the building.

But where did the

paintings go next?

And who would have the power

and the money to buy them?

There's a few things that

really bother investigators

and myself about this case.

The paintings that were taken

and all of the artwork that

were taken are so famous

that they could never be sold.

You can't just walk into

an auction house hopefully

and put up one of these

works for auction.

It's hotter than

hot, it's white hot.

It's so famous,

it's so valuable,

and it's so reported on.

I mean, this was a story

that made headlines

across the globe.

Generally, artwork is recovered

when there's a death and

someone contacts authorities

to say that they

found something,

or it's recovered in the midst

of another investigation.

In 2017,

the Gardner Museum

doubles its reward,

but no new leads emerge.

Despite the fact that

it's a $10 million reward,

no one has come forth

with any information

that has led to the recovery

of any of the works.

It's pretty puzzling

to think about

why the works that were

stolen were actually taken

and more expensive

works were left behind.

The thieves, we

know, spent about

81 minutes moving systematically

through both the Dutch

room and the Short Room,

removing what some have

described as a laundry list

or shopping list of artworks.

Although some of the paintings

that were taken

were masterpieces,

unique pieces that

can't be reproduced

or should be recovered,

there were some pieces that

were not that valuable.

The Degas sketches

were not that valuable.

The Finial off of the flag,

the Napoleonic regimental

flag, was valuable,

but not to the point

of these paintings.

So there wasn't a

lot of rhyme or reason

for some of the thefts.

The most expensive

painting there was Titian.

But the Titian, "The r*pe

of Europa" is massive.

So you couldn't really walk

that out of the museum.

They avoided Titian's

"r*pe of Europa,"

but they took Vermeer's

"The Concert,"

and some of these

smaller works on paper,

suggesting that there was a

plan as to what would be taken.

Investigators

begin to shape a new theory.

The art market itself

is full of collectors

whose sole purpose

is to acquire works

that they then keep in their

own private collections,

which are essentially

the private storage

for wealthy collectors.

And we don't have

any way to track

what's traded and sold there.

That person would

have to be very wealthy,

tied to the black market,

very well-versed in how

the art market functions,

very well-versed in how the

museum market functions.

Taken together,

the works really

present as a hodgepodge.

But if you consider that the

thieves may have been working

from a private

collector's shopping list

who had holes in his or

her collection to fill,

and you consider the market

value of the works together too,

it makes that shopping list

theory much more plausible.

Not only would this require

spending hundreds of

thousands, if not millions,

on ordering, smuggling,

transportation, and storage,

you also have the idea of,

why aren't they just spending

that much money on

the legitimate market?

At the time, Anne Hawley,

director of the Garden Museum,

believed that someone had

come up with a personal list

of things that they

wanted to steal

that really they never had

any intention of selling.

This was a list of things

that this person really

just wanted to possess

and enjoy for themselves.

So if someone is collecting

and prizing these works for

their own personal viewing,

that requires a lot

of storage space

and a lot of secrecy.

There are some

suspects that fit the profile.

So in 2013,

Pablo Picasso's stepdaughters

reported a couple

of pieces missing

from their collection.

Turns out, they were

sold by a Swiss dealer

to a Russian oligarch.

Ultimately, a dealer was charged

with handling the stolen goods

and selling them on to

the Russian collector

who eventually returned the

works to the Picasso family.

This is one of the most

frustrating theories of them all

because it forces

us to just wait

to see if someone slips

up on the black market

or on the open market.

Anybody looking to

purchase these items has got

to understand that they

can't really show them off.

You start talking at

your Christmas party

about your Vermeer,

the word will get out.

So if anybody wanted to

purchase them after the fact,

it had to be somebody

who just wanted

to look at them for

himself or herself.

And that's why they

probably have had

difficulty getting

rid of the items.

The Gardner

Museum Heist has always had

an air of sophistication

about it,

but there may be even

more layers to this crime

than investigators

first thought.

The Gardner Museum investigation

is still an open case,

and even though the statute

of limitations has run

on the theft,

the statute of limitations

has not run on the possession

of the artwork itself.

Authorities are still trying

to find the stolen

items for sure.

They're still

interviewing people.

They're still following leads.

They're still using traditional

law enforcement techniques.

So it's an ongoing

investigation.

If the paintings are

safe, who has them?

Where are they and why?

The answer may

be hiding across the Atlantic.

There were a lot of

Boston Irish individuals

who were sympathetic to the

IRA, Irish Republican Army,

which at the time

was in deep conflict

with the British Army

in Northern Ireland

and was looking

for independence.

The Irish Republican

Army, the IRA,

was in fact a violent

group fighting

for what they viewed as Irish

Freedom and uniting Ireland.

And for many years, they

used any tactics necessary,

whether it was bombings

or kidnappings or murders.

And a lot of the criminals

in Boston were

funneling money, arms,

anything they could to

try to help the cause.

So some individuals thought

that it was possible

that the IRA may

have been involved

in the theft of the paintings.

The 13 artworks

themselves would be used

to barter in order to gain money

and weapons for the IRA efforts.

The chief proponent

of this theory is Arthur Brand,

a Dutch private

investigator known

as the Indiana Jones

of the art world.

Renowned art detective

Arthur Brand is known

for recovering artworks

for governments,

as well as recovering things

like a $25 million Picasso

from a yacht.

He believes that the paintings

themselves are located

in Ireland, having

been taken there

after being smuggled

out of the United States

in an effort to raise money

for the cause of the IRA.

The IRA has been

linked to art theft before.

They broke into

Sir Alfred Bates home

where they stole 19 works,

including a Vermeer.

That Vermeer today is valued

by some at around $100 million.

These works they

attempted to use to barter

for the freedom of some

of their IRA compatriots.

We're gonna try

to ransom them back

to the insurance company

or whoever would pay them.

Authorities foiled the plot

and the paintings were

retrieved within weeks.

But there has never

been an overt IRA demand

over the Gardner paintings

and that makes investigators

doubt Brand's theory.

There's no indication the

IRA ever had these paintings.

They've never come forward

to try to get a ransom.

Remember, there's a

$10 million reward.

If they were trying

to fund something,

they would've gotten the reward.

Where is the IRA going to

be exchanging these works

to get money in arms?

It's most likely not

going to be in Ireland,

which means then

they're going to have

to smuggle the 13 most

well-known works in the world

at the time off an island

onto someplace like

mainland Europe

without getting

caught a second time.

Some think the key link was one

of the biggest mob figures

in the northeast at the time.

James Whitey

Bulger is the leader

of the Irish g*ng in

Boston in the '80s

and the early '90s.

And he became one of

the most powerful,

if not the most powerful

criminal in Boston.

They made their money through

extortion, drug dealing,

gambling, m*rder,

whatever it took.

In addition to being a criminal,

Bulger's a long

time FBI informant.

So you think if he

did know something,

he'd say something.

In Boston, if anybody stole

as much as a candy bar,

Bulger's gonna know about it.

So he's a prime candidate

to have information

about the Gardner Heist.

But there was never

any evidence connecting Bulger

to the crime itself.

In 1995, 5 years after

the Gardner Heist,

he's charged with the

whole slew of crimes

related to racketeering, m*rder,

extortion, drug dealing,

all sorts of very

serious offenses.

And Bulger goes on the run.

And ultimately, he gets caught

in the summer of 2011,

16 years after he fled Boston,

in Santa Monica, California.

Whitey Bulger was

convicted of several crimes

which included 11 murders.

He was given ultimately

two life sentences

and charged with racketeering.

Not only was he a

very savvy criminal,

but he was getting tipped

off by corrupt members

of the FBI.

So when he went into prison,

that of course,

made him a target.

During his time in prison,

Bulger began to

fear for his life.

If Bulger

was willing to exchange

information about

the Gardner Heist

to ensure his safety, he

never had the chance.

In 2018, without

a deal in place,

Bulger is m*rder*d in prison.

Some believe that they know

what Bulger may have

revealed to the FBI.

Given that it's known

he shipped arms and

dr*gs to the IRA.

Now that Bulger has been

beaten to death in prison,

there's no way to confirm

anything from him.

But up until the day he d*ed,

he never gave any indication

that he knew where Gardner

Museum's artwork was.

Investigators like Arthur Brand

are still scouring Europe for

any sign of the paintings,

but so far, nothing's turned up.

This artwork belongs in Boston.

Hopefully someday,

they'll be back

hanging in the Gardner

Museum for all of us to see.

There's always gonna be

a reminder of this heist,

even after 33 years,

because of the will

Isabella Stewart Gardner

left when she d*ed.

It states that nothing

can be changed,

nothing can be moved

in the museum.

So if you go today,

you're gonna see empty frames

where the paintings were.

We won't become

a world class city

until we get our artwork back.

You can see those empty

frames, they're heartbreaking.

You walk into the

Dutch Room now,

it's like walking the

first person at a wake,

sadness, loss.

And that's a loss for Boston.

More than three

decades have passed

since 13 works of

art were stolen

from the Gardner

Museum in Boston.

So far, not a single

one has surfaced,

denying the art world some

of its greatest treasures.

But with that $10 million

reward still out there,

hope remains that

these masterpieces

will come home soon.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."