It was one of the most brazen art thefts in history. Two thieves, posing as police officers, prevailed on the night watchman at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to let them in. After tying him up, and a leisurely eighty minutes, they walked out with thirteen works of art and into the annals of one of the world’s most infamous unsolved crimes.
The theft, including works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Manet, and Degas (photo), were valued at five hundred million dollars. It remains the largest property crime in American history.
23 years to the day after the theft, Federal officials announced that they knew the identities of the thieves, and said they belonged to a criminal organization based in New England and the Mid-Atlantic States. The officials did not identify the thieves further, saying the investigation was continuing. They did say they believed they had traced the paintings to Connecticut and to the Philadelphia area a decade ago, but those trails had since grown cold.
“Today, we are pleased to announce that the FBI has made significant investigative progress in the search for the stolen art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,” Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, said at a news conference.
The announcement appeared timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 1990 theft, rather than because of any recently unearthed information. But DesLauriers said the investigation was nearing its “final chapter”. And Carmen Ortiz, a United States attorney who also attended the news conference, said: “I think we’re all optimistic that one day soon the paintings would be returned to their rightful place.”
DesLauriers said the FBI was starting a publicity campaign to focus attention on the paintings in the hopes of garnering leads from the public and possibly from acquaintances of the thieves, anyone who may have glimpsed one of the paintings over a mantel, say, or in an attic. In addition to the paintings, the stolen cache included a Chinese bronze beaker and a finial from the top of a pole support for a Napoleonic silk flag.
The FBI intends to put up billboards with the paintings in Connecticut and Philadelphia. And they have redesigned a page at the agency’s website at www.FBI.gov/gardner, creating the jarring image of stunning art works in a spot normally reserved for the mugs of the nation’s most wanted criminals.
“We’ve determined in the years after the theft that the art was transported to the Connecticut and Philadelphia regions,” DesLauriers said. “But we haven’t identified where the art is right now, and that’s why we are asking the public for help.” The splashy announcement, somewhat unusual when the identities of the suspects are known but not revealed, was designed to draw worldwide attention, he said, beyond the confines of Boston.
Bostonians have been obsessed with the case, and the museum reminds its visitors of the theft by keeping the empty frames that once held paintings like Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and Vermeer’s The Concert on display. That the two large Rembrandt canvases were cut suggested that the thieves were novices in the value of the art. There have been no reports of the paintings having been fenced or sold.
Museum officials reiterated their promise of a five million dollar reward for information leading to the recovery of the works in good condition. “You don’t have to hand us the paintings to be eligible for the reward,” said Anthony Amore, the museum security chief.
Ortiz said the statute of limitations had run out for the crime of art theft. Someone who had the paintings could still be charged with possession of stolen property, she said, but she also said there was a “very strong possibility” that such a person could receive immunity. Museum officials said their chief goal was to recover the art.
Special Agent Geoffrey Kelly of the FBI, who has been in charge of the Gardner investigation for about six years, said the works have most likely changed hands several times over the years. He also said it was possible that people possessing them might be unaware of their significance, or that they were stolen. “It is possible they have been asked at some point to take custody of something, and don’t know what they have,” Kelly said.
Still, he said in an interview after the announcement, he was fully confident that the FBI knew the identities of the men who broke into the museum. He gave no additional information and would not say whether they were dead or alive. “We vetted it out,” he said. “We don’t make that kind of announcement lightly.”
Over the last 23 years, the authorities have questioned more than a dozen Boston-area underworld figures who were part of a loose confederation of New England crime figures, some with Mafia ties. Several have died, including two of the three men investigated for committing the break-in.
One possible suspect, Robert Gentile, 76, a used-car salesman in Manchester, Connecticut, was the target of an FBI sting in February of 2012. In a search of his home, officials seized five firearms, ammunition, and five unregistered silencers, but found no paintings.
Gentile was questioned about the Gardner art, according to his lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, and was offered a chance to escape jail time in exchange for information. But Gentile denied any knowledge of the theft.
Officials did not discuss why they had not arrested the thieves. Sometimes, law enforcement officials will use such announcements to try to prompt the suspects into doing something that could lead to their arrest. Or such an announcement could prompt an innocent person who had seen the paintings into thinking that, if the authorities already knew who the thieves were, going to the police would not be ratting them out.
The bureau’s use of a publicity campaign is not new. In 2011, it undertook a similar campaign to find James (Whitey) Bulger, Boston’s notorious mafia boss, who had been implicated in nineteen killings, and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig. Just days after circulating their pictures on daytime television programs and on billboards, the FBI received tips that led to their arrest in Santa Monica, California.
Recently, visitors milled around the Gardner museum’s Dutch Room, where the huge, empty frames present a haunting reminder of the theft.
“Oh, so exciting,” said Betsy Jackson, 72, a retired librarian, after hearing the news. She and her companion, Lynn Grilli, a school librarian, talked about where they were when they learned of the theft, something many Bostonians remember. Jackson said she had avidly followed the case ever since it was first reported. “We read every word, like a mystery,” she said. “March 18th, 1990, it’s unbelievable; 23 years to the day,” she mused, half joking, half skeptical. “Did the FBI sit on this until the 18th of March? One wonders.”
Rico says says it's nice the Feebs cracked this one, but "they belonged to a criminal organization based in New England"? Geez, a big art theft in Boston, and they figured that out all on their own? (But why is it that Mafia guys, all Italians, always have Irish lawyers? There's a joke there somewhere...)
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