At Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner, the biggest heist in art history Spectacular, enigmatic, or dramatic, art thefts never cease to fascinate. Today, we return to a most ambitious robbery perpetrated by fake police officers exactly thirty-two years ago, on St. Patrick's Day in Boston. The loot? Thirteen masterpieces, including a Vermeer, a Manet and a Rembrandt, are still at large... 

What the hell happened?" In the early morning of Sunday, March 18, 1990, the security guards were shocked! The relief team found the doors closed before discovering an empty lodge. In the basement, the two night guards were found handcuffed to the pipes, their mouths and eyes covered in adhesive tape. Deliverance for the unfortunate agents, but no relief. They had been neutralized for five hours, and their attackers had clearly stated their intentions: to rob the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

The exterior is unassuming, but the interior, designed like an intimate Venetian palace according to the wishes of its founder Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924), houses an impressive collection of 2,500 paintings, drawings, and objects. Enough to make the wolves salivate… It is dead quiet at the museum when Richard Abath, alias Rick, finishes his rounds shortly after midnight. Apart from the fire alarms that have gone off for no reason, nothing to report. What a surprise when two uniformed cops he observes in the surveillance video images ring the intercom. In the Irish rain that is falling on the city on this St. Patrick's Day night, one imagines that the cops are busier on the road than at the museum. Rick answers: "Police! Routine check. We order you to open up!" Candidly, the guard complies. This is where the trouble begins  : the men in uniform ask him to send for his colleague Randy, who is in the middle of a tour. Rick obeys; Randy arrives. As soon as they are gathered, the guards are posted to the wall, handcuffed and tied up: they have been tricked. The two intruders will be able to peacefully roam the galleries of the museum for 80 minutes, each on their own side, as the infrared motion detectors will attest. Well, peacefully is an exaggeration when you see how hastily the frames have been taken down, placed on the floor, and how the canvases have been roughly cut up before being taken away. The museum's director, Anne Hawley , is surprised by some valuable "forgettings" on the part of the burglars, starting with Titian's The Rape of Europa (1562), which is nevertheless unmissable. It is also discovered that the self-portrait of Rembrandt kept at the museum was removed with its frame before being finally abandoned against a wall to stay at home. Despite everything, the fake police officers do not forget to take the magnetic tape of the day's video recordings...

A haul estimated at 200 million dollars in 1990 but which, today, would easily exceed a billion!

It was a veritable raid! Thirteen abductions were deplored, and not the least of them. Among them was Vermeer's Concert (circa 1666), the pearl of the collection, one of the most delicate compositions by the master of Delft. There was also the loss of two Rembrandt paintings, including Christ in the Storm on the Sea of ​​Galilee (1633), his only recorded seascape. To these must be added a landscape by Govert Flinck, the painting

Chez Tortoni (circa 1875) by Édouard Manet, emblematic of his café scenes, as well as a drawing by Rembrandt, five by Degas, a Chinese Gu vase, and the finial of an eagle from the flag of the Grande Armée. A loot estimated at 200 million dollars in 1990 but which, today, would easily exceed a billion! The goalkeeper's suspicious movement. Due to its scale, the investigation escapes the Boston Police and is entrusted to the FBI. Abath is a suspect: we know that an hour before the thieves arrived, he opened and then closed a side door of the museum without warning his colleague. A precautionary gesture, he claims, which is anything but conventional. A signal perhaps? Another troubling element: the detectors did not record any movement of the thieves in the Manet room that the guard would have been the last to have visited. Could he have picked up Chez Tortoni? Even if the police asked to enter the museum, they would not open it like that; they must first note down the registration numbers and call the central office at the museum management.  In 2015, the last incriminating element: the FBI published a surveillance video from the day before the tragedy. Rick opened the door to two men parking their car in front of the museum to chat. The person concerned says he has forgotten everything about this meeting. Nothing conclusive, however; the keeper is never seriously worried. We highlight a nonchalance tending towards incompetence...

A more serious lead leads the FBI to one of Massachusetts' most feared gangsters: James J. Bulger, known for his ties to the IRA (Irish Republican Army). The Irish terrorist group is known for stealing works of art. His signature? Setting off fire alarms to divert attention, as was the case at the Stewart Gardner Museum. Bulger denies everything, and there is no evidence to support his suspicions. New evidence is needed.

Here it is in April 1994! Director Anne Hawley receives an anonymous letter promising the return of the works for a ransom of 2.6 million dollars. Despite attempts, discussions are short-lived, and hope evaporates. In 1997, Boston Herald journalist Tom Mashberg is invited by antique dealer William Youngworth to enter a hangar. The latter shows him rolled and signed canvases. It is dark, but Mashberg thinks he recognizes Rembrandt's seascape... Unfortunately, it is again a blank: the few oil cracks recovered by the journalist are analyzed. They date from the 17th century but differ in every way from the pigments used by Rembrandt. The “Merlino Gang” and the Lie Detector. A more solid hypothesis leads to the Boston mafia, the "Merlino gang.". As early as 1992, an informant told the police that a certain David Turner knew where the loot was. Carmello Merlino, leader of the gang, was arrested for cocaine trafficking the same year; he offered to negotiate the return of the works in exchange for a reduced sentence. According to the leader, Turner was one of the two fake police officers, accompanied by George Reissfelder, who died in 1991. The person concerned formally denied it during his trial in 2001 but encouraged the authorities to look into the case of Robert Gentile, another mafioso linked to Merlino, who had information on the theft.

An accusation corroborated by the testimony of the widow of Gentile's alleged accomplice, Robert Guarente, who died in 2004. Six years later, his ex-wife claims that when he learned of his cancer, Guarente entrusted the stolen works to Gentile. Vigorously questioned in 2012, the latter denied it, like the others, but the lie detector rang when he claimed to know nothing about the night of March 17-18, 1990. It was because of police pressure, his lawyer complained. Moreover, the search of Gentile's residence in Manchester (Connecticut) yielded nothing. With his death in September 2021, all his secrets were erased. So many uncertainties to solve the biggest heist of the 20th century. On March 18, 2013, the FBI put on a brave face by claiming to finally know the identity of the thieves linked to the East Coast underworld. Problem: They are supposedly dead, and the paintings are not located. Not known for its laxity, the police institution nevertheless assures that the facts are now prescribed: return the paintings, and you will have absolution!                                      

For its part, the museum continues to venerate the lost masterpieces. True to Isabella Steward Gardner's will that each work remain in place, those responsible have always left the empty frames on the walls. For the 25th anniversary of the theft in 2015, an application allowed a virtual visit where, in three dimensions, the stolen paintings reappeared in their case in high definition. Supporting the FBI's appeal, the museum promised in 2017 a reward of 10 million dollars to whoever returns the treasures. Something to hope for, since the missing works, when they are not destroyed, often resurface after the death of their captors, the heirs wanting to wash away their crime. A generation: that is precisely the time that has passed since that terrible night of Saint Patrick's Day. © vwart.com art expert