14: The Boston Art Museum Heist | Red Thread
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You're crammed like a sardine into a dark and dreary place, like a Pringle stuffed deep down into a long-forgotten Pringle can. Dust covers every surface around you. You can't see a thing. Perhaps you never could. You know not how long you've been like this. You may never know for sure. All you know is that what feels like an eternity ago, you were in a place of resplendent beauty and sophistication. And now, you are in the pits of hell by comparison.

How did it end up this way? You churn over the cyclical thoughts that plague you incessantly. They hound you to no end. To be honest, that may in earnest be the gravest of all insults to have befallen you in this accursed place. It's that simple understanding and resentment born from the unjust nature of the situation itself. You had so much beauty to show the world. So much history was etched across your skin in your old age.

Delicate hands caressed you once upon a time. You yearn for any touch now. So much you could have given to so many people, if not for the greed of man. Now there's no guarantee that you'll ever be seen by anyone's eyes ever again. You are The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt. You've just been stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and you're currently imprisoned in a metal tube, and this is...

is the red thread. I'm your host, Jackson. I'm joined today by career criminal Isaiah and modern art appreciator Charlie. He's here too, to relay just the facts of the case. No opinions, none of that nonsense, just the facts. Our subject today, the single largest art theft in history, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist that to this day remains unheard.

unsolved. We're going to go over the museum itself, then we're going to talk about the heist itself, and then we'll dive into theories and suspects to see if we can do what the FBI never could over 30 years of time of investigation. They never solved it. What do we pay them for, goddammit? They don't do anything. It should be really easy to solve it too. It's pretty embarrassing that they haven't.

Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, were cameras not around in the 90s? Like, why? Like, there's so much money. Cameras aren't around now. That $30 billion heist in LA last week, they apparently had no cameras in the Garda World facility, which is like a money storage facility.

But cameras are so cheap. We have cameras in our pockets, like, at all times, basically. I know. I mean, I kind of get back in the 90s, and I actually believe that the cameras were turned off during the heist, so there were probably cameras. But, like, yeah, it's crazy to me that in this modern time, like, heists can still happen without, like, any kind of photographic proof. I'm just under the assumption that we're always kind of under surveillance, you know what I mean? Like, no matter where you go. Not wrong.

It's kind of crazy. Did that heist you were talking about, did they solve it? No, people, as far as I know, unless it happened today, they still are on the run. Interesting. All right. Well, maybe we'll be covering that in about a year's time if it's still unsolved.

Yeah, Isaiah, you know a lot about this case. Yeah, so I covered this case on an old video of mine. I think it was the unsolved true crime iceberg. And it's famous because, as you said, it's the most expensive heist ever and it's unsolved. Like, it's such a weird thing that not a lot of people talk about. But the story of the actual heist itself is hilarious, in my opinion. What I'm not familiar with is a lot of the potential...

like suspects in the case. So I'm excited to get into that today. But yeah, the case itself is great. I love it. And Charlie, you've, you were saying before, uh, the recording that you've never heard of it. No, I don't know anything about it. Like, I feel like I've probably heard of like the largest art heist ever, but I've never really looked into it.

Yeah, I've, I've would have like, there's probably video essays on YouTube that you watch for like YouTube night once upon a time and now have like just kind of fallen from your memory. Maybe definitely possible.

I feel like it would have been something that you would have been exposed to because like I said, it's one of, if not the largest art heist of all time, at least unsolved art heist. Before we go any further, a big thank you to the sponsor of this episode, MeUndies. They're not thieves. There's no heist. They just want to put great underwear on your body. So more from them later.

And another reminder, as per usual, that we're on audio platforms. So if you're breaking into any museums or galleries on your own or doing your own heist, you can listen to the show while you're doing that. If you do do that, please let us know. Or intentionally get caught while you're conducting the heist. It would be great for our numbers, I think. And finally, there's a lot of information about this case. There's 20, I think 22 pages or 21 pages of information

documentation below in the description so you can go check out the research. And as always, it's sourced so you can go read up on the articles that we use to compile the document. So yeah, that's down below. And yeah, back to the show. So I guess we'll start with the museum itself first. Kind of paint a picture, if you will. Oh, look at that. Yeah, nice. Pretty good. That's my only pun for the episode. No more. And so...

So, yeah, we'll talk about the museum because it's a very pretty museum. If you guys want to look at the actual picture, the first picture, it's kind of beautiful. It looks very serene. Yeah. So it's at least this picture anyway. I've never been there, but the picture itself portrays a very scenic kind of museum with just a lot of greenery inside. It looks like a very relaxing place.

And the way that the museum itself was formed is a very interesting case as well. And to discuss that, we need to discuss the people who founded it. And that is obviously Isabella Stewart Gardner. In Boston, Massachusetts, you'll find the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It is best described as a gallery of European, Asian and American art. Its founder, Isabella Gardner, hailed from New York and was born in 1840. She came from a well-off family and received a private education, having even studied abroad.

It was through a Parisian friend that she met her future husband, John Jack Lowell Gardner Jr. John was part of a... That's a lot of names. That's a lot of names. Big name, very big name. Well, Jack is his nickname. Oh, that's true. How do you get Jack from John? Is that a dick from Richard? No.

I assume the very first Richard was just maybe the first Richard was just like an absolute monster like no one liked him that's what I've always imagined but yeah I don't know it's only one letter removed

But in Richard is you're talking about what? No, Rick. Well, Rick. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That makes more sense. I was trying to piece that together as well. Jack or something. John was part of a prominent Boston family with significant wealth accumulated through shipping, real estate and trade. Their shared love for travel took them to Northern Europe, Russia, Egypt, and the Middle East and Asia.

Isabella would document each journey in her journals. The pair were enamored with the concept of traveling and exploring the world, and both had a fondness for different artwork born from different cultures. In 1878, Isabella attended a reading by Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard's first professor of art history. It was at this event that she was invited to join the Dante Society, sparking her passion for collecting rare books and manuscripts.

Have you ever heard of the Dante Society? No, but it sounds like something I'd make a three-hour video on. Yeah, I was just thinking that. Like, I had never heard about it until just, like, discussing or, you know, researching this case. It sounds like such a cool society. I imagine it's related to Dante Alighieri. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Um...

The Dante Society was an organization dedicated to the appreciation of Dante Alighieri. Okay. Sure. Okay. I should have just shut up and read what Jackson had typed. That was my bad. I've covered everything. Yeah, you did. You did have it. Yeah. The appreciation of Dante Alighieri, the renowned Italian poet best known for the Divine Comedy. They were founded in 1881 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and are still around to this day.

Then in 1884, during a visit to Venice with Jack, they ventured into the Palazzo Barbaro. Barbaro. Sure. Something like that. This Venetian palace served as a hub for American and English expatriates. Is that right? Expatriates.

What? Yeah. Expatriates, including numerous... It means, like, people who have moved from, you know, a country. Oh, okay. See, if you would have used the word expatriate to me, I would have assumed that was someone who became, like, a fugitive.

I mean, you can use it that way. Former patriots on the run. They owe no allegiance to any country now. Kicked out of their homeland. I mean, it's a heavy word, expatriate, if it sounds like a Mel Gibbs movie. Yeah.

I think it's a cool word. It is a cool word. In fact, I think too cool for the use for this situation. We need to just like what is ostensibly like tourists. Yeah. Yeah. It's just someone who travels. Yeah.

For American and English expatriates, including numerous painters. The Palazzo Barbaro deeply inspired Isabella laying the groundwork for her future museum. Yeah, so that museum is on the Venice River, whatever the Venice River is called. And it's like a pretty normal museum, just like a bunch of cool artwork in there. But yeah, she was deeply inspired by that museum, that one specifically. That's what kind of...

influenced the Gardner Museum in Boston. Also, just to briefly go back to the Dante Society, I looked into it quite a bit after this research, just to see if there was anything nefarious, like if we could do a video on the Dante Society in the future, if they were some kind of... They're just nerds. I don't know what to say. They're like wholesome people that just like... Ah, yes, but evil books. They're like...

They could have the Necronomicon or something in the possession, which would be cool. No, I think it's literally just the work of Dante. It's not even just... They collect eight bucks. That's all they got. They just really like those eight bucks.

That's really sad. It's cool. Yeah, it's whatever. I mean, I've made videos about Dante, so I can't say a lot. She met Bernard Barrison, who would go on to become her chief art advisor. Bernard assisted in gathering some of the biggest pieces in her collection, which were purchased from the wealth grown from John's successful businesses and her own family's inheritance. Her father was a wealthy New York linen merchant.

As they acquired more artwork, Isabella and Jack had plans to open up their private collection into a public museum. Jack died suddenly of a stroke in December of 1898, but Isabella went on and continued their plans, purchasing a large amount of land in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood, known for its cultural, historical, and academic institutions, in Boston, and shortly after, she would begin construction on the land. She moved into the museum herself, and in 1903, the museum had its grand opening.

I do think that's really cool that, like, a lot of the art collectors and stuff, I kind of find a bit lame when it's just, like, all holed up in, like, a private collection. Yeah. So, I do really appreciate that this was then turned into at least a public museum. And this, like, the museum itself looks beautiful, so...

I think it's a really, really cool thing to do. Another cool thing is how quickly they got it up. Nowadays, if you want to make something, it takes like fucking 20 years to open shit. Now everything moves so slow. That is true. I've, I've noticed that. And it's, it's so weird because like logic would, would say that it should be the opposite, right? Like in the 1800s, the early 1900s, it should, should have taken decades to make really cool shit. But yeah, like you said, now it takes like 30 years and it's like, what, what is happening? How are we getting slower?

Is it just that there's so many projects or what? I legitimately think it probably comes down to like cutting costs. So I think it's like in this constant struggle to save money, they end up just stalling these projects for so, so, so long. Yeah. Oh, so nothing's happening. I was going to say if a project takes longer, it's usually more expensive. Like if people are working that entire duration. But yeah, I guess if it's just like there's five years of no activity and no one's getting paid, then yeah, you're probably right.

Um, so yeah, sadly. Yeah. Isabella herself suffered a stroke in 1919 and died in 1924.

She left the museum, quote, for the education and enjoyment of the public forever. And insisted on, in her will, that nothing in the museum should be changed, nothing acquired, and nothing sold. That's so fucking cool. Yeah. She's a hero. Like, actually instructing that nothing changes in this museum, that's such a cool legacy to have, in my opinion. Yeah. Too bad that, uh...

that what we're about to talk about happened. But other than that, yeah, pretty cool. Well, to be fair, nothing got sold in the museum. That is correct. Nothing was sold on the grounds of the museum. Wait, nothing in the museum should be changed, though. That's kind of... Well, I think that's more of like in the metaphorical sense. They probably built that shit out of asbestos, so they probably swapped that out at some point, would be my guess, for the good of the museum. Yeah.

Yeah, there's like a health safety risk and like the asbestos removal people come in. Gotta let the kids eat the paint chips. They come in and they can't do any work because the will says nothing can be changed. I don't think that would work. That wouldn't hold up in court, sadly. Well, and there's probably toilets in there too, which probably weren't there back then in the same capacity. Oh, true. And like escalators or, you know, some way to get like wheelchairs up things and stuff like that. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm sure that's what she would have wanted, though. I think if we're going to be critical of what she did here, I think she probably meant in terms of the artwork, like nothing should be changed there, which is obviously a very fair thing to do. Cool legacy, though. So let's move on to, sadly, what the museum...

museum's current legacy is, and that is the theft. So Charlie, you can take this one, I think. I've got it. So this is known as the single largest property theft in the world. The Gardner heist lasted just 81 minutes at 1.24 a.m. on March 18th, 1990. A car pulled up to the side of the museum. Two police officers wearing disguises jumped out of the car and started pushing the museum's buzzer saying that they needed to be let in.

The guards who were on shift that night let them inside, which breaks museum protocol. 23-year-old Richard Abbott and 25-year-old Randy Heston believed that the two police officers were responding to a disturbance call in relation to unruly celebrations happening nearby in relation to St. Patrick's Day.

Once the criminals were inside, they declared the now famous quote, gentlemen, this is a robbery. That's such a cool line. I love that line. It's only cool because they got away with it, but it reminds me of Charles Doza. This is democracy manifest. Yeah, that guy. As he's getting fucking put in a police car. Yeah. They would then overpower the guards and handcuffed and duct tape both of the guards in the basement.

This is one of the quotes from Richard Abbott. There they stood, two of Boston's finest, waving at me through the glass. Hats, coats, badges. They looked like cops. So the disguises that they used, I think they were genuine like police outfits, but from all accounts, like they were very, very authentic. It wasn't something like you would get down. It wasn't like a party city plastic badge. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And when you read the line verbatim up here, two police officers wearing disguises, it made it sound like they were like fully clothed cops wearing like a fake mustache or something. They were wearing extra police clothes on their police clothes. Like police officers that were disguised. No, they were criminals wearing a police officer like disguise. No, they were police officers wearing a DSP.

DEA disguise. Yeah, like an FBI fucking coat or something. I know what us two police officers will disguise as. Slightly different police officers. I'll never see it coming. Just a fake mustache.

The two criminals didn't appear to have any weapons, and the panic button in the museum was never activated. They did successfully disable the alarms, however the museum still had functioning motion detectors that were able to record the thieves' movements. And here's the list of motions. Jackson will probably put it on screen.

The next 24 minutes after the assailants disabled the guards and security systems are a mystery. When it comes to the crime, 24 minutes is a lifetime. The entire heist took over 81 minutes, which does seem to be a rather long time. Extreme confidence that no one was coming and a comfort level with museum, said Anthony Amor, who was Gardner's security director since 2005, when asked about the duration of the heist.

Or what the duration suggested. So he was saying that, like, obviously the thieves had kind of like an extreme level of confidence that no one was coming and no one was going to thwart their attempts. And they had some level of comfort with the museum itself to be there for 81 minutes. Because when you think about, like, heists and stuff, it's getting as quick as you can and get out as quick as you can, right? Because police could show up at any minute. There could be, you know, someone. It just indicates that there's a level of comfort here. And I agree with that assessment.

I like the motion detectors here, where it's, someone is in the Dutch room. Investigate immediately. Three exclamation points. It's going off forever. It's like a sassy motion detector. Hello? Check the Dutch room. I would have thought, maybe just because it's the 90s or whatever, like early 90s, but I would have thought if there was constant...

you know alarms like that or detections like that and nothing changed then it would be routed to like the police or something I've thought there would be a system like that in place but I guess not maybe if it was like an actual alarm system instead of just motion detection

But yeah, it didn't seem like anything got routed to the police. At 1.48 a.m., they were captured by the motion detectors in the museum's Dutch room. The aptly named Dutch room held Dutch, German, and English art that Isabella Gardner acquired. Here was Rembrandt, a golden age Dutch painter, self-portrait, age 23, which she purchased in 1896. The

The Dutch room held many dinners and parties and was a popular space for entertaining. Gardner once hosted a dinner for the Harvard football team in 1909 when they won against the Yale, for example. She must have been a big football fan. Yeah. It was in the Dutch room that they also cut Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm of the Sea of Galil.

a lady and a lady and gentleman in black from their frames they removed vermeer's the concert and flinks landscape with an obelisk from their frames the concert was purchased by isabella in 1891 at a paris auction for six thousand dollars which is a lot that's a lot of money it's a lot of the time but it's worth far more now i think vermeer if i recall correctly um

Uh, he, he, I believe he only had like 13 paintings or something like that. So they're a big rarity. And the fact that one of them is missing, that, that is going to be worth a fortune. Yeah. I mean, they all are worth a fortune now, but definitely that, that is sad that one of these 13 paintings is just gone. Never to be seen again. Well, it'll be seen again. I'm sure someday.

Hopefully. Well, once we solve the case. They took an ancient Chinese bronze gu, which is a type of ancient vessel. Is it not gu? No, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It's just funny. It's just a funny word. It's a good word, yeah. Gu. It's spelled G-U for those out there. It dated back to the Shang Dynasty from 1200 to 1000 BC from a table and also stole a small self-portrait etching

by Rembrandt from the side of the chest. Just constant steel, like they stole a lot. It's a lot to get away with in such a short amount of time. Yeah, I mean, I assume they did multiple trips back to the car. I mean, they couldn't carry all this individually. A lot of these paintings are huge too. They cut them from the frames as well. So I assume what the act was, instead of taking the painting itself, they cut the actual fabric and then like roll it up. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That what's interesting though, is that they weren't behind that like armored class. Cause even in the nineties, you'd, you'd probably have that. Yeah. Uh, it doesn't seem like, I mean, there was glass shattered, but it wasn't like unbreakable. Yeah. No, no, no, no. But it's not like the security glass. Yeah, exactly. That's what the guards were for. Theoretically.

Yeah, true. The two men moved on to the short gallery at 2.08 a.m., meaning they were in the Dutch room for a period of around 20 minutes. The short gallery was on the same floor as the Dutch room. The short gallery is described as more informal in contrast to the grandeur of the other galleries in the museum. It was a passageway that leads into the tapestry room. The gallery contains prints, drawings, books, textiles, and family portraits, some by Gardner herself.

Here, five Edgar Degas or Dugas paintings were stolen. It's just Duga. Duga. I've got the pronunciation right there. I thought I saw an S at the end of that. I mean, it is, but it's French. They have no respect for the alphabet. He's a French impressionist. They stole some of his paintings, three mounted jockeys leaving the paddock, possession or procession on a road near Florence and the study for the program.

The thieves then moved on to the Blue Room, a gallery described as brimming with objects that reflect Gardner's personal relationships. A lot of Isabella's close friends' art is featured in this room. From here, Eddard Monet's Chez Tortoni was stolen.

No respect for the French. It's okay. Charlie's a modern art enthusiast, not a golden age art enthusiast. I definitely got that name pronounced correctly. This is payback from you making fun of me for mispronouncing all the Russian names in the Ultima Pass episode. This is karma. We've all had our history of the last 14 episodes of mispronunciations and stuff. Yeah.

They also attempted to steal the flag of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, but failed and seemingly opted for the Eagle Financial by Anthony Dennis Chardet. How did you get my name from that? It's like a newspaper.

They just took a newspaper off the side table. Eagle Financial. Yeah, well, that's the one. Yeah, the Eagle Financial. Don't go back. No, no, no, no, no. Leave it. No, that's the one. All right, it's Eagle Financial. There you go. Which was a bronze eagle-shaped statue. They also left behind the most expensive art piece in the museum, The Rape of the Europa by Titan.

Many have commented that the assorted collection of stolen art is perplexingly random with seemingly no pattern, even after being investigated for years.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like there was any rhyme or reason. They definitely hit Rembrandt hard, as well as, like, definitely some of the more expensive ones. So they had some kind of familiarity with the artwork itself. But, like that passage just says, there were very expensive art pieces still in the museum, like The Rape of Europa by Titan. So it's...

I don't know if their knowledge of actual artwork itself was that strong, just like the actual museum layout and stuff, I assume is what they were most familiar with. So how did they fail to take the Napoleon's Imperial Guard? What would that even look like? There was no one there to stop them, so how'd they fuck that up?

Perhaps it was like bolted into the wall or something like that. They just couldn't because most of the things they took were very easy to pick up. And a lot of like the paintings were like cut off. So maybe they just couldn't cut that off. I think if I remember right, part of the flag was down, but like they couldn't get the other half of it. So it was just kind of like hanging there because if they rip it in half, they ruin like they're not getting anything out of that. So they just like forgot it and then went to something else.

I'm surprised they wouldn't still go for it though even like ripping it in ripping it in half well I mean then you're just like no one I mean they fucking cut into the paintings themselves yeah but they can still sell that for a lot of money if you have a flag ripped in half you're not selling that right yeah no one's gonna buy like half of a flag but they will buy like a painting that just has like some cuts the sides off yeah

Yeah, I'm just under the assumption that art thieves would probably still take the chance and just cut it. My theory is that these guys knew how to conduct a successful robbery, but they weren't super art smart. So they probably staked out the museum a couple times. And then while they were there, maybe asked an employee like, hey, what do you think is the most expensive painting in this room? That one, huh? And I think that's how they did it.

Then they probably just looked at where everyone was congregating. Like they'd look at what the most popular ones were that people were seeing. You would think though, if they were like dedicated art heist thievers or whatever, what are they called? Art thieves, I guess. Like if they were that dedicated and that, I don't know, that skilled at it, they would have like some kind of knowledge of what constitutes expensive art.

I mean, they did steal a lot of expensive stuff, like Rembrandt and whatnot. They just didn't min-max every painting they could have got or whatever. Maybe what happened is they went in, stole some really big Rembrandts, and then they're like, there's not a lot of room in our storage. Let's skip Europa because that's a really big painting. Maybe we'll go on to some of the smaller stuff or something like that. Oh, yeah. I didn't take into account size. And maybe Europa is just way more effort as well. It's a pretty big painting.

If I remember right, yeah. Yeah. So... Or maybe they're just, like, really big Rembrandt fans. Maybe it's not even... They're not stealing it to sell it. They're just, like, stealing it for enjoyment. They just want to hang it up at home. Yeah.

God, imagine that. Imagine if there's just some fucking home out there with just like some random home, not even like a multimillionaire or anything. Like when you think of who buys these art pieces generally, like from thieves and stuff, you imagine like, you know, crime bosses and stuff. Imagine this is just some random dude and he's just got Rembrandt up on his wall at home, just in the living room.

Not even in a frame. It's just like fucking untacked up. It's got like stains on it, like ketchup stains and stuff over the years. He's just using it as like a table mat for his meals. Did they never try to sell any of these? Like I said, I don't know the story of this. Did they never try and sell them? I mean, there's accusations and rumors that some sales went down, but there's so many in different directions that none of them have been proven outright. Yeah, we'll keep going. We'll get to the theories about what

where they went after this yeah yeah yeah I'm sorry I didn't mean to jump ahead no no no you're getting excited I know it's a very exciting case this is an exciting case

From 2.08 a.m. through to 2.27 a.m., a duration of roughly 18 minutes, one thief worked in the Dutch room and the other in the short gallery. Again, it's exceedingly long amount of time to conduct an art heist, and it indicated a level of comfort that the thieves possessed. From 2.27 through to 2.41, a duration of roughly 13 minutes, no detectors registered anything, so it's impossible to place the thieves at this time. Counterpoint, though, I don't know if this necessarily...

supports them being comfortable they could just not be that good. They don't have a real sense of how quickly they should move in a sense of urgency. Potentially, yeah. I think you have to be fairly confident to do pull off something like this. There's a middle ground because yes, it's the most expensive heist ever so you'd expect them to be professionals but all it took was, hey, we're cops. Alright, you're tied up now. That was all the heisting needed.

Yeah. This isn't a mastermind level scheme that they've executed here. It's not like that heist those Navy SEALs pulled, or not Navy SEALs, those Army Rangers pulled off where they were like in and out in seven minutes. Like this is just two guys walking around like, this looks pretty rich. Let's get this out of there. Let's pull this down. Yeah, do you think, okay, so counterpoint, do you think it would have made,

it would have indicated that they were more comfortable if they were quicker. Like if they had a direct plan and they were in and out within like 60 seconds and everything that they wanted. A hundred percent. That would have 100% spoken more to being like experts, knowing what they were looking for, knowing the layout and all that. Okay. No, I'm not set in my writing. I'm not saying that they're experts by any means. What I'm saying is the amount of time that they spent there to me. The comfort. And that security guy before indicates that they were like,

They were chilling. Like it wasn't something where they were super stressed. Yeah. Not necessarily like skill. Yeah. To me, that just means that they probably aren't very smart, like in general. Like that's one of those things that I think if they were in and out, I'd be like, oh, these guys, they know they know what they're doing. But here it's like, oh, these guys are fucking bumbling idiots. And they just got really lucky. Yeah, that's a good point.

An interesting issue that pops up is that the blue room, where the Chez Tortoni piece by Manet was stolen from, was never shown to have any instrument-based evidence that the thieves ever even entered the room. That is to say, the motion detectors never went off during the entire 81 minutes the thieves were inside the museum. In fact, the last time they had gone off was at 12.53 a.m. during the desk guards rounds. Finally, one last mystery, the art piece Galil by Rembrandt

was hung on a secret door that was completely hidden from guests looking at it from the gallery. The investigators found the door open, suggesting some level of inside knowledge. So there was still a desk guard present during all of this? No, no, no. Oh, no, no. 1253 was way before. Sorry. Yeah, it was like 30 minutes before the actual heist thing started. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, but that is, that's suspicious. Like the detector is obviously working because the trip to when the, uh, the guard went through. I mean, I guess it could have, I mean, but no, they would have had to be in and out of that room to like get the chest or Tony in and out. So that's, what's weird to me. Like how did that not trip? Well, so the assumption would be that the desk guard took it with him. That's the insinuation. Yeah. So, so sea of Galilee was on, like it wasn't on display when,

when that happened? It was like on a different wall. I didn't read that. What you've got here, the art piece Galilee by Rembrandt was hung on a secret door that was completely hidden from guests. Oh, no, no, no. So it is on the wall in the display area in... Forget the room. I think it's the blue room, right? Okay. No, the Dutch room. I think it's the Dutch room. Okay. It's on display there just normally, but behind the painting itself is like one of those hidden compartments.

Like a secret door. Interesting, okay. And they found the door open. I see what you're saying. Okay, okay. Yes, so it shows, I mean, it indicates some level of familiarity with the infrastructure itself of the museum. If the thieves knew about that door, because it's not something that they would have known just by looking at it. Interesting. So maybe they had heard about it or someone they found out. They definitely knew the layout, I guess, then, right?

Yeah, that's what it indicates. But also, I mean, I guess they could have like forced the knowledge out of the guards downstairs or something like that. They could have been like, is there any hidden compartments or something like that? And then the guards never said anything. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. What do you think, Charlie?

Well, you want to know, I have a really stupid theory, but it's probably not the time for that. Please, please save that theory. I need to know. I think it's big brain. I'm just going to tell you that. I think I cracked the case. Stay tuned to the end. Just a sec before we continue, just a quick word from our sponsors of this episode, MeUndies.

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The two men then took two separate trips to the car carrying the artwork and then departed from the museum separately at 2.41 a.m. and then 2.45 a.m. The guards were left in the basement of the museum and nothing was discovered until the cleaning crew came through in the morning.

And then there's a police sketch of the thieves. The assailants. One's kind of... It's like a fucking... Kind of like a comedy series from the 80s. One's tall and lanky looking and the other's chubby face. Is that Jay Schlatt on the right? They both are wearing the exact same fake mustache it looks like. I know, that's definitely a fake mustache for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Also, with the whole guards tied up downstairs, I love, if you scroll back up in the document, I guess the cleaning crew came by and took photos of the guy tied up. Yeah, they did it on time first. Yeah, he's still fully tied up there, just like, fully tied up. The hair coming out through the tape is so funny too. Like, look.

Yeah, it's like a hippie kind of rocker look. Like it's Cousin It crammed inside of there. It'll be up on the screen right now and audio listeners can find the document below if they want to see it. But yeah, it's funny because I guess the cleaning crew came by. It says that they were the first ones that discovered the scene of the crime. And their first instinct was just to take photos. Man, the kids are going to love this. Yeah.

never let him live it down it's also funny because it's the 90s so it's not like they used a smartphone they were like wait here i'm gonna go get a camera yeah it takes way more effort than just putting your phone out of your pocket they were there for a long time too they got tied up at like 1am and i guess they would have been discovered around 8am so like seven hours probably and then like hold on a second i gotta get a photo just wait 30 more minutes

And then also there's another photo in the document, a really interesting infographic, which was a minute by minute look at the Gardner Museum heist. I believe it was by Boston Magazine.

Really useful little picture that kind of chronicles what we know about the heist itself and like what the thieves kind of how they traveled through the building itself and what paintings they took. Highly recommend people check that out if they want to kind of a quick visual indication of what happened. Yeah. So 81 minutes and $500 million worth of painting stolen. It's fucking crazy. That's pretty good.

I mean, as far as work to reward, pretty good outcome, I think. I mean, was 500 million divided by 81, they would have made a massive permanent return. That's a lot of money in a minute. That's a lot. But that's if they sold the paintings and it's not just being used as just in the attic of these guys or whatever. How do you sell something like that? They have to know how to turn that into money. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I mean, man. Which is hard because it's a high art piece.

So your typical clientele you can't sell to because they're like high society people. So it has to be someone who's willing to pay a lot of money for an artwork they can never show off. It's like a weird, you know, like... I wonder, like...

It says $500 million. That's what the paintings are worth. But I assume that it's probably like they actually receive less because absolutely people people in that kind of scene probably wouldn't pay full retail price like they would they would find the they can't go hang it off after they buy it. Yeah, really the only people you can sell that to are criminals like there's nowhere else. So you have to find like the wealthiest criminals ever.

Plus, you can never use it. What's it ever going to... If it's just hanging on a wall and anyone sees it and they're like, holy shit, that's Rembrandt's Galilee. Immediately, just fuck yourself. So what do you do? Do these high society criminals or whatever just buy them and just store them in their attic? If movies have told me anything, they just put it next to their fireplace. Yeah, I guess they're just above the law, maybe. Well, I mean, the law is not going to be wandering into their house and the only other people that'll go there, I guess, are criminals.

They drink champagne and laugh maniacally every night looking over at him. It's an authentic Rembrandt. As they pet their white cat. Ever heard of the Financial Eagle? Have you ever heard of the Financial Eagle? Isn't that a YouTuber? No, that's Legal Eagle. Legal Eagle.

Financial Eagle's a different YouTuber. Yeah, they stole the other one. They stole the Financial Eagle. Yeah, yeah. He's caged up in this guy's house. He probably paid $300 for him or something.

It really does sound like just like a fucking newspaper. That's what I love about it. It's just like they picked up a newspaper. It'd be really funny if like these guys knew nothing about art. Like maybe they were paid to do this heist or something. And then they get in the car. They're like, dude, we stole like, it's gotta be like $2,000 worth of stuff. We're going to make a fortune.

Imagine if they just fucking dumped it at the local, what do you call them, the resale places? Like a pawn shop. Yeah, a pawn shop. Like, how much do you think I can get for this? Maybe 40 bucks and a watch. God, like $800 for all the art. For Rembrandt. That was worth 81 minutes.

We were in there for 81 minutes trying to get these paintings down with our knives. It was a nightmare. Yeah, maybe they are just fucking bumbling idiots that got lucky hitting the only museum in the area. Hey, Paul, you gave me 80 bucks for the financial eagle. You're doing great. So funny. All right. We can move on to the theories now. This is where things start to get a bit interesting, more so. So I'll start. First one that I came across was Brian Devitt.

So in 1980, a man named Brian Devitt and a partner hijacked a federal express truck. They knocked out the driver with ether, which is a drug used to induce sedation and stole the uniforms of the drivers. Their plan?

to rob the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York. They had duct tape and tools to steal paintings, but unfortunately for them, they hit the biggest roadblock that all aspiring art thieves hit, and that is traffic. They got stopped in traffic, and by the time they reached the museum, it was closed. Their plan failed.

So, I mean, these guys are stupid enough to have been the ones that did the Boston Art Museum heist. I actually love the theory now that the thieves are just like bumbling idiots and somehow they pulled off... They're like the Home Alone guys. Like Joe Pesci. Like, hey, what's the matter? Yeah. Yeah, just through sheer luck, they pulled off the most expensive heist of all time just somehow. Yeah. I keep seeing it in the papers and like, damn, we did that? Yeah.

Pauly, you'll never believe this. That night, there was another crew robbing it too. Look, it's right here. They can't believe it's them. Like, they don't believe it's them. Man, we sold what we got for $800. We should have been looking where they were. What the heck? Yeah, there must have been another room with $500 million worth of paintings. It's crazy. They got this guy here, Rembrano. He talked about Jesus or something. We didn't even see that.

That's so good. Anyway, the truck driver identified them and later confessed and they spent a few months in jail for attempted robbery. Does it even count as attempted robbery at that point? It's more just assault. They spent a couple months in jail for assault. They didn't even get to the place with robbery. Well, I guess they sold the uniforms of the truck driver. If I was their defense attorney, I'd be like, Your Honor, they weren't even there. They never even got to the building. What do you mean?

I mean, maybe that could have, maybe that's why they only spent a few months instead of longer. Yeah. Maybe if they successfully tried to rob it. They were too bad to be criminals. Brian was living in Beacon Hills, a suburb in Boston, on the night of the heist. His previous experience and the similarities of the planned but failed robbery and the Gardner one made him a possible suspect.

He was interviewed many times in 1992 and was even questioned before a grand jury in 1993. He insisted that he knew nothing and couldn't provide anything to assist the investigation. And he later died in 2004 and nothing has come from the investigation to Brian Devitt. So it's entirely possible that he did do it.

And because he's dead, they just can't get any more information about it. But yeah, he was the first potential suspect that popped up in the research. So I want to include him. And also the story about the Federal Express truck made me laugh. This is so funny. This next one is a pretty long one, so one of you guys can take it if you want. I'll take this one. So this is Miles Connor and William Youngsworth.

In 1998, a Vanity Fair journalist named Tom Mashberg claimed that he had seen first-hand Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of Galilee. The quote from him says, "Generally he extracted a large, rolled-up canvas, which he unfurled before me. It was, I am certain, Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, arguably the most famous missing painting in the world.

I saw frayed edges where the painting had been cut from its frame on the night it was stolen, and I was shown in the flashlight's beam Rembrandt's signature. A petty criminal in Boston named William Billy Youngsworth had said that he could help recover 11 of the stolen paintings, and he had chosen Tom to show proof to.

At 2 a.m. on August the 18th, 1997, Tom was driven by a driver, picked by William, to an old warehouse about an hour outside of Boston. The driver escorted Tom into the warehouse and into a room that had dustbins inside. He reached into one and rolled out The Storm on the Sea of Galilee from inside. After viewing the painting, he was quickly sent away by taxi and ordered to not write about it for a week, allowing time for the painting to be moved to a different location.

Okay. Hold on. So this guy...

The guy, okay, maybe the jokes we were making were accurate. The guy who stole $500 million worth of artwork is on trial for firearm possession and some weed. Yeah.

And then he's like, yo, you won't believe what else I've got. But if I tell you, you're going to have to let me go. Give me $5 million. He can't sell it to anyone. So he gets arrested for possession. And he's like, would you take $5 million for a Rembrandt? Like what? His plan is to sell it to the police.

Basically. What the heck? Anyway, as part of that deal, Billy says, I also want Miles Conner's release from prison. Yep. Yep. And this is where we go into Miles Conner. Yeah. So Miles Conner was no stranger to crime. And although he and William were in prison the night of the heist, many thought him most like, oh, sorry. Many thought he most likely knew about the robbery.

He seemed to have had his foot in the door in the world of underground art trade and had also previously stolen a Rembrandt painting from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1975. See, he just really likes Rembrandt. He loves stealing Rembrandts. That's why he was so focused. I swear, in my research, I thought there were only 13 Rembrandt paintings, so this guy was just hitting them all. He's got two of them, theoretically. Yeah, that's not bad. Let me just confirm that.

You said that for Vermeer, by the way. About 13 Vermeers. Oh, yeah. Yes. No, Rembrandt had over 300, it looks like. Well, two of them are billies, apparently. He had begun to play a game with the police where he could help locate stolen paintings for leniency in return for his criminal activity. Is he stealing paintings to use as bargaining chips for future crimes he's going to commit? For his weed charges, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

He's like, just in case I get caught with weed one day. I need something. I need the insurance. Pauly, let me tell you. Police ever bust you for anything? Give me a call. I got the rape of Europa and the whole storage line up back.

We'll get it taken care of in no time. I'm gonna call my police guy. He has a bunch of rare artwork he uses for bargaining chips. Like, what? I love the idea of committing an even greater crime as insurance for a lesser crime. For a lesser crime, yeah, yeah. Like, you get arrested for jaywalking and turn in $120 million worth of artwork. Yeah.

Some people, a quote by Miles Conner, some people consider me the biggest art thief in the country because I robbed a number of museums. Well, yeah, that's why they consider you the biggest. What kind of a quote is that? Some people call me an art thief because I steal some art from time to time, you know? Like...

He's just being modest about it. He's like, yeah, some people call me the biggest art thief, but I mean, I just rob a couple of museums. Yeah, I'm not actually that big. I'm not the biggest, unless I get arrested for marijuana next week, in which case I might become one really quick. Miles Conner is actually like a character I was reading through some interviews he did with BuzzFeed.

Boston Magazine again, I believe. He really does come across as a character. And this isn't a point of theory. It's a fact that he played a game with police where he would give them paintings in exchange for criminal activity. Oh yeah, that's... So I believe he denies that he ever had anything to do

Both of these guys denied that they had anything to do with the Boston Art Museum heist, but they're both definitely like career. Until they get arrested, in which case they have a lot to do. Well, they were also both in jail when the heist happened. It's a pretty good alibi. But if he knew like underground art trades and stuff, then they probably at least know what happened to it, even if they... Well, it's also like we said earlier, kind of, he showed the journalist...

um the rolled up canvas yeah supposedly he had it in his possession yeah if the journalist is to be believed yeah it's possible that he may not have um he may not have been part of the heist but he could be involved in the sense that he's he had the paintings at some point yeah yeah

Also, the two options with this guy is he's either really stupid, because he does, like you said, much more high-level crimes to excuse smaller ones, or he's like the Joker, and he just wants to do it for the game of it. He just enjoys it. Oh, I definitely think he really just enjoys it. From the interviews I read, it seems like he's loved his life. You want to know how I got this Rembrandt?

Miles had told the, had told Tom that criminals in the area, quote, couldn't help but notice the museum's lack of security. And what? It was that bad, huh? Yeah, apparently. Well, I mean, it was two guys who could be tricked by, hey, let us in. Uh,

Yeah, true. The museum's lack of security. And once someone simply unlocked an unarmed window to the first floor and would return often and see the lock was unnoticed and unlatched for a long period of time. That's a pretty cool...

I was going to say that's a pretty cool way of like casing the joint. Yeah, just unlock a window, see how long it takes for them to check it. Yeah. Yeah, just keep coming back and check. That's a really cool way of casing a joint. Miles and William had a long history together with William seemingly gravitating towards Miles as a father figure. They would often partner in countless robberies. Both spent many years in and out of prison.

When Miles was in prison in 1990, he had begun to reach out to former trusted acquaintances to take care of his art and collection of swords.

This all went into William's possession in 1992. However, this turned into Miles accusing William of selling 99.9% of his belongings. The relationship soured with Miles calling William a degenerate thief. They were considered each other's nemesis from this point on. They got into a fight over his swords and that made them hate each other.

I get it. If I was Miles, I'd be pissed if I trusted William with a bunch of my swords. I made the joke, but this is literally the Home Alone guys. Yeah. I do love that they were... It's like an anime. They became each other's nemesises just like from a bad... Did you sell my swords? Be honest. It's also funny that he just really got into collecting Japanese swords. I just find that funny.

Jesus. What a fucking loser.

You're just mad because he took your pop culture reference, Charlie. Yeah, come on. You should respect it. You're right. You're right. Game respects game. I guess my name's like Darth Vader. I'm quite capable of breaking into any museum, including the Gardner, and I've been in places like the Smithsonian storage houses where they would not be happy to know I've been. But I did not plan, nor did I consign, the Gardner break-in. That's why I'm here.

That's a weird quote. It's like, hey, you know, want to know me? I can get into storage rooms. You never know it, but I was there. So don't test me. I'll do it. I'll break into your house. If you've got a storage room, I'm already there. You don't know it. I'm in your walls. You're not giving him the respect he deserves. He's the Darth Vader of Art Heist. Give him some respect. Yeah.

The Sith Lord. Yeah, he made a Star Wars reference on me while talking about crimes. These guys did not steal... They did not get $500 million out of it because I think they're too... They're both too smart and too inept for any of this. I don't know what's going on. Also, to go back to the Star Wars references, it is kind of like the Rule of Two there, Charlie. He turned on William. He's a... What do you call it? Apprentice.

He didn't really turn on him because he eventually tried to lobby for him again. Remember, one of his things was release Miles Conner. So even though they were at odds, he still looked out for him. I think that was beforehand. Was it? I think that was after because. Oh, no, no, no. Wait, it soured in 93. You're right. Yeah, right. So that's even worse, though. He like tries to advocate for him to get like to get him out of prison. And then that guy turns on him. Yeah, it's kind of fucked up. But he also sold his sword. So.

Yeah, he's Katana's. He's anime collection. It's called a Katana. He sold my fucking Star Wars Christmas. What's it called? The Christmas episode? Oh, yeah, yeah. The Christmas special. Yeah. Yeah.

There's no excuse for that. He denied having involvement in the heist and even called it, quote, inexcusably sloppy that the criminals sliced two Rembrandts from their frames and smashed glass in front of the concert, which he said could have easily been unbolted, possibly saving it from shrapnel damage. Throughout Tom's time... Do what? I was going to say, I mean, he's like...

He's probably right. If it was that easy to get these paintings, if he's saying, if the Darth Vader of Art Heist is like, yeah, they kind of fucked this up pretty bad. It was way easier way to do this. Then it probably does speak to the actual thieves not being very good at it. Them not having experience. Kind of goes back to your theory, Charlie, that they were just idiots. Throughout Tom's time and knowing both of the men, the possible brain behind the Heist shifted from Miles to William.

Interesting. Hmm.

So, I mean, it's possible that like it was planned from prison, maybe. Yeah, maybe he hired a crew to do it or something. Yeah, maybe. Anyway, and that comes into possession that way. Tom later said that he believed he had been shown a replica because the painting was covered up in a protective coating that helped preserve it. This would have made it impossible to roll up.

Right, so the original painting that was taken was that they preserved those in protective coating that prevents them from being rolled up. But wait, then how the fuck they would have had to take it out of the museum? Like, the assumption that I made before. Intact, yeah. Unrolled up. My presumption before was like, they rolled them up to make it easy to get out. Yeah, I guess they wouldn't have then, in that case. So if that's the case, then this guy was just lying about having a Rembrandt to try to sound impressive. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess. Or he just truly believed they were the real ones. Oh, true. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, it could have been wrong. You're right. Yeah. Man, it would have been funny if it was like $3 dollar store poster quality Rembrandt. Like it's all... It's like a shiny... It's just a piece of A4 paper. Yeah, yeah. I got a real Rembrandt right here. It's like glossy. This is the actual... It's like an actual A4 piece of paper. He's like, trust me, this is the actual... It looks a lot bigger when you put it up in the frame. Have you seen it? I thought. That's what I thought.

Yeah, the frame does a lot of justice to it. I'm not going to lie to you guys. U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern demanded that Williams show credible evidence that he could get the stolen paintings if demands were met. William provided a vial of paint fragments that he insisted were from the stolen Rembrandts. Donald and the FBI later announced that they were not from a Rembrandt painting and the deal fell apart. Oh, well, there's your answer. It was fake. There you go. Yeah.

An analysis on the fragments years later showed that they may not have been from Rembrandt, but possibly consistent with paint used in 17th century paintings like the Concert. Oh, okay. Interesting. The Concert was also taken, so... Yeah. Huh. Okay. William also received death threats from other criminals, saying they would go as far as kidnapping his six-year-old son if he didn't hand over the art. What?

These are really like art aficionado criminals. If you don't return the art to its rightful home, I'm going to kill your kid. We love going to the museum and looking at Rembrandt. Give it back. I think he means like hand it over to the criminals, not back to the museum. Yeah. No, it's funnier if it's the museum. Have some morals. No one steals from Rembrandt.

He is resentful to the FBI for refusing to go along with his proposed deal and believed he was framed for one of his charges. He constantly fought for an appeal until he was released in 2000. He now maintains that he just wants to walk away from everything Gardner related. He's a

He owned Alston Antiques in Springfield, Massachusetts, a store that specializes in fine period and custom-made furniture, collectibles, antiques, restoration, estate appraisals, and liquidation, as well as theft recovery software and appraisals. But that seems to now be closed, and Williams appears to have retired. That's really funny that he gets out of jail, and he's like, I just want to go to a simple life, a delicatessen, you know, maybe making some leather couches for nice love scenes. Yeah.

I just love that he sells theft recovery software. It's so funny. It's funny how like in jail, he's like, I have all of the stolen Gardner paintings. And as soon as he's out, he's like, you know, I can't, I don't really want to talk about it. I think I've moved on.

I'm putting it all behind me. I've changed, and you should too. As for Miles Conner, he would go on to write a book called The Art of the Heist, Confessions of a Master Thief, and recently was the focus of a documentary called Rock and Roll Outlaw, The Ballad of Miles Conner, that explores his life. That's great. Rock and roll outlaw.

He recently gave an interview with the Boston Magazine titled, The World's Greatest Art Thief is Alive and Well and Still Casing the Joint. That is a fascinating interview with the very experienced man who actually comes across as quite likable. Hold on, can I get him on an interview? Can he be on a YouTube video? Hold on. Oh man, maybe actually. Damn, I should have reached out. That's pretty cool. Anyway. So that's the theory of those two, who's probably the most likely candidates, or at least they know, you know, who might have done it.

Well, they were definitely involved in the scene and they were also knowledgeable about it. And they, like, I think the journalist that said that he was there and saw something, like it was a fake probably or something like that, but he saw something. So they were involved in that sense. Definitely. I don't think that they were the original thieves. I don't believe that personally. No.

So I'll take the next one. This one's about the mob. So over the years, the FBI has extensively looked into criminals in the area connected to organized crime. They suspected that two individuals, George Ressfelder and Leon, Leonard D'Amuzio, who both passed away in 1991, may have been involved in a heist, possibly with the assistance from others. George died of a cocaine overdose at 51 and Leonard was found shot dead at 49. They often were seen in a,

Dorchester repair shop that was operated by Carmelo Marlino, a mob associate who was said couldn't walk away from a score. Marlino once got arrested for running a cocaine trafficking ring from his garage and bragged about having access to stolen artwork. Yeah, as you do.

Yeah. Years later, the FBI sent an undercover informant into Carmelo's garage and secretly taped him talking to his workers and associates about the stolen paintings from the Gardner Museum. When later arrested again in relation to a robbery scheme in 99, the FBI tried to leverage a deal with Carmelo that if he told of the location of the paintings, the charges would be dropped. He, however, was unable to deliver any information and he died in prison in 2005. Yep. So no information from him.

Yeah, the FBI thinks that the art could have ended up in the hands of Robert Unk Garanti. Garanti. Robert was a convicted bank robber and had strong ties to the mafia in Philadelphia and Boston. He was known by some as The Cook. He died in 2004, and his wife, Aline, told the FBI that shortly before his death, he gave two of the stolen artworks to Robert Gintile, a Connecticut mobster in a rendezvous in Maine.

Robert died in 2021 from a stroke at 85, and he consistently insisted that he knew nothing about the heist. However, in 2013, the FBI released a statement that claimed Robert had previously possessed two of the stolen paintings and had offered to sell them to an undercover agent for half a million dollars each. That seems pretty cut and dry. I mean, it was a claim. I don't know if they had proof. It's just a claim. I guess they would have to have proof.

Yeah. I don't know why they wouldn't just bite on it, right? If he's got the paintings there and he's offering to sell them, why not just fucking arrest him and check the paintings?

Yeah, I don't know why either. I didn't find any information on why they didn't pursue this. They just deemed it not a path worth investigating. But if, like you said, if he's saying, yo, I got these two paintings and he's talking to an undercover agent offering to sell it to them, why not just go through with it? Why not just like see if he's able to procure the paintings? Maybe they did and he wasn't able to.

Yeah. Maybe, but I feel like they would have specified that he was unsuccessful in it, but instead they're making it seem like they just declined the deal. They're like, half a million? Oh my god. You're out of your mind? The FBI didn't have enough money for it. Yeah, the budget doesn't allocate this much. The FBI was talking to each other. He's like, what do you think these Rembrandts are worth? Like $800? We can get way better down at the local pawn shop.

So then this is a quote from Robert. I had nothing to do with the paintings. It's a big joke. Robert was convicted for illegally selling prescription medication and drugs and in search of his home during the time police found a handwritten note listing all the stolen artwork and their estimated value. They also found a newspaper article about the heist from the day after it happened. Circumstantial. It's all circumstantial. This sounds so obvious. Wait, why?

Why didn't they look into this guy further? What do you mean? It said right there, I had nothing to do with the paintings. It's a picture. He's got a list of how much they're worth. What the fuck? Okay. I couldn't find any information as to why. There's like 18 people in Boston who it definitely was. Like they had something to do with it. Yeah. What if it's like all of them? What if it's like the Avengers of Art heist? Like Darth Vader got together with Robert and then they pulled off this like massive heist.

And then they each took a single Rembrandt to celebrate. I don't know. This is so silly. To me, that really seems pretty strong evidence that this guy had something to do with it or at least knew where the paintings were.

So this was all born from that Robert Unk Guarante, who was that convicted bank robber with strong ties to the mafia in Boston. So his wife, after he died, told the FBI about, you know, selling it to Robert Gentile. And so, yeah, I mean, it could have been Robert Unk Guarante and him, maybe, Robert Gentile, since there were two. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm reading more about why they fucking flubbed this so much. Like, why not look into him a little more? Isaiah, what do you think? I think what likely happened is two people stole it. Either they were, like, hired by someone else to do it, or they were the actual thieves. And then it made their way through a lot of different hands, right? So I think someone who's, like, a loudmouth like this, who, like...

Gets caught for selling coke and then brags about other stuff he's done. Someone who wants to be seen as rough and tumble may have it may have passed through his hand or he may have known who did it. But he would be the type to either way be like, yeah, I know about that heist. I was a part of it. I had the works, you know, stuff like that. So I don't know if he necessarily did it or if he just knew about it. But I think a lot of people in the crime scene of Boston probably knew who did it.

Well, they probably, yeah, maybe. But like my issue with the whole changing hands of the artwork and stuff, like we were saying before, the paintings would have had to be sold to extremely wealthy people. Sure, yeah. So I don't get how these people had the money. I'm not saying they bought them. I'm saying they moved them for them.

Oh, okay. So they were... Okay. Okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, potentially. And then the final... Well, one of the final theories. We've still got two more to go, but this one is... The inside job. So the two criminals were let inside of the museum by the guard on duty, Richard Abbath.

Richard has always said that he believed the two suspects when they claimed they were police as there were many loud St. Patrick's Day parties close by and he had even thought that the locals had possibly climbed the iron fence and somehow got into the museum without him noticing. He always insisted that he never knew anything about the heist but according to him he was told directly by a federal investigator that quote we've never been able to eliminate you as a suspect end quote which is fucking hilarious considering the last guy was fucking ruled off and he had like

He had handwritten notes and was like seen offering to buy to sell it to undercover agents and stuff. Dude, Jackson, he said he didn't do it. I don't know what more you want from him, okay? He didn't even say that. He just said it's a joke. Yeah, he said it's a joke. Like he's laughing because they haven't arrested him yet. Yeah.

But Richard Abbott, like, he was tied up for eight hours. And he's their favorite suspect for some reason. What is the FBI doing? So the museum's security protocol prohibits entry of unauthorized personnel, which includes the police. But Richard has claimed that he didn't know this. So I don't understand that. Like...

The museum's security protocol says that you're not allowed to give access to anyone, including the police. Isn't that against the law? Can't the police? I guess they would need a warrant, wouldn't they? Yeah, but it'd also be a stupid fucking policy to have because if there's like an active problem in the museum, like you'd want the police there. Sorry, you guys can't come in. He probably had a real reason to think there's a problem.

Yeah, I mean, he thought that people were climbing over the fences and stuff due to the St. Paddy's Day festivities. So, yeah, I mean, he had a motive for that. I don't think it's unreasonable. His actions prior to the night of the heist have also come into scrutiny, with Richard himself explaining in an interview that he would often show up to work drunk or stoned. I don't know why he'd admit that, but all right. It's just a brag.

He's really cool. But also, like, that doesn't... What do you mean under scrutiny? Like, a guy showing up to work drunk and stoned doesn't mean he's going to steal Rembrandt. Like, it's not even connected. He also admitted that in what would constitute a security breach, he let in a small group of friends after hours for a New Year's Eve party. What is he doing? Why is he admitting all this? He's going wild. When he let the criminals in, still thinking they were police, they ordered him to step away from the security desk.

He did this as he was afraid of getting arrested. He had tickets to a Grateful Dead concert later that day and wanted to still attend. Oh man, that's sad. I don't want to get arrested. I want to go to the Grateful Dead. That's so funny. The second they released him from the basement, he's like, what time is it? Where? Oh, fuck. I gotta go.

I gotta get to the Grateful Dead. Have you guys heard of Grateful Dead? Is that a big band? It's a huge band. They're kind of a legend in their own right. Legend has it they invented LSD. They're like a myth in the music world. Wow.

alright well that makes more sense he was desperate to get there in doing so stepping away he stepped away from the only emergency alarm in the museum so there was only one fucking alarm in this entire place that could have set any kind of indication off he stepped away from it but I mean what are you going to do if they're like gentlemen this is a robbery you're going to follow their demands right you're not going to hit the panic button and then get shot yeah I'd do exactly what he did

So police have also said that according to the motion sensors, the thieves never actually walked to where Manet's chaise d'automne was displayed. The only movement around this art on the night was Richard's when he did the rounds before the criminals arrived. The sensors also showed that Richard's briefly opened the side door on Palace Road just before he let in the police. So the same door that they came in, he had opened it slightly, like, I don't know, like, I think it was like 10 minutes beforehand. Yeah.

Which I don't know if I, I mean, he could have just been looking out to see what was happening with like the St. Paddy's Day stuff. Like if there were noises and stuff out there. That's not any indication to me that he was like,

Waiting for them. And in 2015, police released a six minute video taken from security footage at the museum the night before the heist. It is uncertain if any significance was placed on the clip or if it was reviewed at all until later. They put out a plea to the public asking if anyone knew the individual shown in the clips. That's fucking wild that like, what is that?

25 years later, they're just like the police are like, hey, we're finally taking this seriously. You guys seen any one of these clips? We've actually got video footage of it. Like 25 years past it, you only just find the clip. It's crazy. Yeah, the people in the clip is going to look so different 25 years later. It's impossible. Why wouldn't they put that out immediately? All right, we're looking for a young man, mid-20s. Fake mustache.

He looks exactly like this. Yeah, but even funnier. So they put out that plea asking the public if anyone knew the individual shown in the clips. The footage showed a car backing up to the museum side entrance and a man stepping out to buzz the door. This was the night before the heist, by the way.

A security guard then lets the man in and seems to review a document that the stranger brought with him. They then step out of sight for a few minutes before the stranger leaves. The guard who allowed that man to enter was Richard as well. He never reported this incident to the police despite it occurring exactly a day before the heist. This video footage has drawn significant attention to Richard as it goes against the museum's strict policy of not admitting anyone after hours.

However, it has recently been revealed by former museum guards that the stranger Richard let in was actually the museum's deputy director of security, Rick Abbas Superior. So they released this footage and no one knew that this guy was the head of security for the museum itself. They're so inept. Like I said, there are 18 people that definitely did it. Like...

Now this was just a routine, like the head of security was just showing up to just check on the place I assume, the deputy director of security. But like the police finally found this clip and they're like "holy shit this is a prime suspect".

Although in an interview, a man named John Paul Kroger, who trained the guards for their third shift duties, emphasized that nobody should ever be granted access to the museum after hours. Not even if they're your boss or law enforcement. This is the dumbest rule ever. That sounds like a great way of getting fired. Yeah. Like, sorry, boss, you can't come in. Rules are rules. The rules that you taught me. Like, I can't let you in. Yeah, it's that don't trust anyone, not even me type shit.

So dumb. So dumb. So Richard, I mean, Richard unfortunately died on February 23rd this year and he has never escaped the accusations and questions surrounding the heist. And this is a quote from Richard. I don't want to be remembered for this alone, but they're saying it's half a billion worth of artwork. And ultimately I'm the one who made the decision to buzz them in.

That's so sad. It's the kind of thing most people don't have to learn to cope with. It's like doing penance. It's always there. This guy was being paid like $7 an hour, by the way. He's had to deal with lifelong guilt. You let them in. You lost Sea of Galilee. How could you? If it was you guys, would you feel immense guilt for it? Because for me personally, I don't know if I would. I'd be like, I did what I could to save my life. I thought I was a danger. You know?

Plus like you thought he wasn't doing anything nefarious. He thought they were police. They were dressed as police. He's being given an order by what he assumed were police to be let inside the building. Like,

Yeah, I mean, what was he meant to do? What was he meant to do? Like, it's not his fault. Yeah, like you, Charlie, I don't think I would feel guilt. Yeah, and no one got hurt, except him being trapped in the basement for eight hours, but like, no one got hurt. Missing out on the concert, yeah. He was the only victim here, really. Yeah, he was the only victim. And he had to live with a lifelong guilt.

so annoying alright Charlie or Isaiah do you want to take the next one I'll knock this out yeah yeah so up next we have Whitey Bulger

A man named Whitey Bulger was one of the most influential crime bosses in the Boston area during the time of the heist. He was the head of the Winter Hill Gang. Although he denied involvement in the heist, he admitted that he had instructed his men to identify the culprits because the robbery was committed within his area of influence and he wanted to be paid tribute. I mean, that's pretty... Most of the time, like, if you do crime...

on someone's turf you've got to pay them or let them know or something like that oh yeah absolutely it's just funny to see it written out it's just yeah so like okay it's like this entire world it's like this entire world that we're just like it's invisible to the public eye like we just don't think about it just these like mobs that operate uh underground and like all their turfs and stuff like that it's super interesting yeah yeah

The FBI, particularly agent Thomas McShane, investigated Bulger and determined that his ties with the Boston police could have explained how the thieves were seemingly able to procure convincing police uniforms. Or, even more interesting, perhaps real police were arranged to perform the heist itself. Bulger was also believed to have- Maybe they were real police and it's just so corrupt. Yeah, I had that thought earlier. It's possible.

Bulger was also believed to have ties to the IRA and McShane had identified the tripping of the fire alarm as a potential quote calling card that the IRA liked to use. Um,

Okay, I don't know about that, but that could be a stretch on his part. I mean, Boston had a large Irish community. No, no, no, not that it's not... I'm not talking about your writing here of it. I'm saying him saying, like, fire alarms, typical IRA sign, you know? Maybe that...

The IRA and its rival Ulster Volunteer Force, UVF, were both believed to have agents in Boston in the time and both had previously been involved in similar heists. For example, the Northern Bank robbery in 2004, which was 26.5 million pounds, is one of the biggest robberies in UK history and was believed to have been conducted by the IRA, even though they deny it.

It's possible. Ah!

That doesn't seem as likely. Yeah, maybe again it was his turf, so he was looking for it. I don't think the IRA was related. The reason the IRA did a lot of heist was because they were financing a militia. I feel like stealing artwork isn't a good way to go about doing that discreetly, especially because most IRA members... Sure, there were a few lieutenants who dedicated their full time to the IRA, but most IRA people were...

The their secrecy was their whole thing, like they would work day jobs and then on the way home, throw on a ski mask, shoot at the British and then like go home. Right. It's not like they were the kind of guys who had, you know, these crime connections that they could sell off hundreds of million dollars worth of artwork, something like that. It seems like a bit of a stretch. I think if it was if it was just stealing money, I could see it. But yeah.

Maybe the whole IRA thing aspect of it, but if Whitey Bulger was so influential and he kind of owned that area of Boston at the time, I just, it's potential that, I mean, it's possible that he, he at least orchestrated it. Like, I'm not saying he went in there himself, but like, it's possible that he orchestrated it or sent people in to conduct the heist.

Seems like everything criminal would have run through him in that area. Yeah, I think he definitely could have done something with it. I'm just saying I don't think the RA is that likely. Yeah, maybe. So I'll take the modern day here. So the theft happened 34 years ago. It's still an active ongoing investigation, and the museum has a $10 million reward for any information that's relevant that would assist in recovering the art. They're also offering a further $100,000 for the bronze eagle statue alone.

Empty frames are still hung, hanging on the wall where their inhabitants once sat, which I think is pretty cool. Yeah, it's just empty frames. I mean, it goes back to Isabella Gardner's will where she didn't want anything changed. So just leaving the empty paintings there is a nice reminder of at least what was there and fulfilling her wish.

And this is from the Gardner Museum Instagram. On this day 34 years ago, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was robbed of 13 priceless works of art, the largest art theft in world history. The thieves stole not only from the Gardner, not only from Gardner, but also from the wider public and culture. Today, empty frame, empty frames hang on the walls, not only to mark where whence these masterpieces were stolen, but as a gesture of hope. We

We believe these works of art will one day be recovered and returned to the Gardner Museum. It is a day we eagerly await. And I'll tell you, I'll bring that day now because I got a theory. Oh, yeah. Let's hear it.

It's not a likely one. Not even close to a likely theory at all. I think the most reasonable one, the most rational one is Robert, where it really seems like he had the art. And for some reason, the FBI or the investigators, the FBI, they decided not to really pursue it. I think that's most likely where it is. But a fun one of how I think it was conducted at the very least.

I really do think Richard probably did play a role in it. I think there's a good chance that Richard just agreed to being tied up in the basement like that. I really think that that'd be a strong way of doing it. If they were cunning, I'm sure Richard would tell them the bare basics layout, and then they'd scramble to get the art and all of that. So I think that Richard was probably in on it, and the two people that were hired were probably real police officers to do it.

That's your theory? That's what you've taken from everything? Alright, well, my issue with the whole Richard thing is he could never kind of get any benefit from this because he's just so intrinsically tied to the museum. The FBI are investigating it. They've got eyes on his bank accounts and stuff. He was their prime suspect. He lived his life never having received any benefits from doing it. And I think he would have known that as well. Plus, he was just a 22-year-old kid making $7 an hour. I really doubt he would have been involved in that kind of shit.

I don't know why 22 would mean he wouldn't be involved. A lot of people grow up into this kind of lifestyle. Like that's how a lot of them get into it. Hmm.

Okay, yeah. Maybe the age doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. It's just, again, I think he was so tied to the museum itself that I think anyone would have known that you would have become prime suspect number one and you would have been under lifelong scrutiny for as long as the investigation happened. Yeah, but if he doesn't have any of the evidence on him or anything, there's nothing to tie him to it. You have to keep in mind, remember, one of those paintings that was stolen, the Tortini, whatever, the

The tort one that was stolen from a room where the sensor was only tripped once and it was by Richard on his way like out right before the criminals got there like the two police officers. So there's really no explanation on how that could be there if not for Richard being involved. How could they have possibly stolen it when every other sensor gets tripped? I mean, I guess it could malfunction and it doesn't register when they go. I was thinking malfunction was probably the most likely and they somehow got lucky, but

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there was another security guard there at the time. So if the insinuation that is at 1230, like when that alarm was tripped, that's when Richard got that painting down and like hit it for them or whatever, like got it ready to be taken. The other guard would have seen that. Yeah. So why isn't there any information about the other guard? I just assumed at that point. He just wasn't like an important part of the investigation. There was no real information about him.

Why, though? I don't understand why he'd be written off so easily because it's very possible. Like initially. And the reason I changed to being real police officers is I think that is kind of a compelling argument if it was like super authentic and shit. Like, I think that I mean, it's not a bad argument. But initially, I thought it was possible that there was a third person that was kind of just like the getaway guy and that Richard and the other security guard were the ones that took all of the art, brought it outside, and then they just tied themselves up in the basement or something and just stayed down there.

You can't tie yourself up. You absolutely can. They use duct tape. They just duct tape themselves. So you have, what do you mean? I could do that right now to myself. Okay, wait, wait, wait. Duct tape your face. Duct tape your legs. Oh yeah, I guess you could. Yeah. Okay. You would absolutely do that. 100%. Okay. Fair. Um, but also like if, if both the employees are working together as well as the two people that came in, then I, there's no confirmation that two people came in. Right.

It's just their word that it was two police officers. It could have absolutely just been a guy. Oh, I see what you're saying. So it was the two people inside doing it, and then they gave it to a third guy outside to leave. Yeah, who just takes it away. Interesting. The only reason I changed to it being like real police officers at the scene is because I really do think that that is a pretty compelling argument to make. That'd be pretty interesting. I mean, it's not unreasonable, especially with corruption. I could see it.

Yeah, that was my first theory is that they just, they did it, gave it to a third guy who just takes it away. Trying to think about how, like, what kind of evidence there is that would disprove that. I get the only thing would be that, um, no, even that wouldn't work. Yeah. I mean, I guess since you said that they could have tied themselves up, it would have been entirely possible because they know that they needed to still be there at the end of it. Yeah. Yeah.

And they could easily just say like, oh, two dudes dressed as police officers. They both had this weird mustache, you know, like it's so simple. But what did they think would happen afterwards? Like, again, they couldn't have sold the paintings themselves because they're so heavily under investigation.

When you see these headlines or when you know the value of something, you're not really thinking of how you're going to sell it. I read a story a couple of weeks back about people that stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of crab. Who are you going to sell that fucking crab to? Yeah, it's worth that much, but you're never going to sell that fucking crab for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it's a bit disingenuous to believe that crabs are applicable to Rambra paintings, like fine art and stuff. This stuff could absolutely be sold.

No, it really can't, though. It's too expensive. It's too hot. It's too notorious. No one's going to be buying that. Like, even in the underground, I feel like that's going to be hard to sell. But maybe this specific case, because it was so much money, but fine art is definitely stolen and sold. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Otherwise, fine art thieves wouldn't have existed.

Yeah, 100%. And that's why I'm saying they probably didn't know they couldn't sell it. Like, that's why they would do it. They'd be like, oh, we'll definitely just sell this, but they didn't know how hard it would be. I mean, there's no evidence that I can point to that would disprove what you're saying. I don't personally subscribe to the theory. I guess I just have too much naive faith in Richard. It just seemed like he was a normal dude that unfortunately was at the wrong place at the wrong time and really wanted to go to a concert later. Yeah.

so it kind of feels bad to like pin it on him but think of how strong that alibi is like damn i really wanted to go to the grateful bed now i have all this guilt this this this is my legacy this guilt of this this art being stolen it's it's too much to bear that kind of thing like it's so strong it'd be such a good alibi the guilt is a good alibi i mean it's a good cover story if that's what you mean yeah well that's what i meant for that

Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I personally, most from reading all this again, I think it was a mob thing. I think it's... If it wasn't like... What's his name?

what's his name uh fucking whitey if it wasn't whitey boga then it was something mob related in my opinion i also agree that the most logical is probably robert like he had all of the shit i really think the cook had all of the art and the fbi just fucking blew it yeah yeah i mean he had he had like evidence of um the

like the handwritten note of valuations on the pieces. And he was also talking to an undercover agent about selling the pieces. So I like Richard's got nothing in comparison to this guy who was literally out trying to sell the pieces, but yeah,

I mean, it still doesn't rule out your theory because the driver could have been someone in Robert's association. Well, the beauty of my theory is you can't disprove it because it's pretty outlandish. There's nothing to directly contradict the possibility that they fucking tied themselves up downstairs and then had someone else's take the art away from them. I don't think it's super outlandish. I could definitely see it being possible, but I just think there's more likely situations.

Yeah, I think so as well. Like the sensor thing in that room for the tort, tortoni picture or whatever, I really think is a pretty strong notch in my belt on my theory there. Yeah, potentially. Uh, Isaiah, what's your personal favorite theory? Uh, my role for these things is never mistake for, uh, malice. What can be explained with incompetency. So like, uh,

I, I think that the museum just had poor kind of lackadaisical security. And then a couple of guys who either were doing the heists themselves are more than likely paid to do it because if it's a job this expensive, I think it's more likely someone pays them to do the high. So maybe real cops were paid to show up. They easily got inside. Um,

everything gets stolen and then it makes its way through underground art traders. I think a lot of the people who claim to be responsible for it or to have knowledge of it may have actually known like whose hands the paintings pass through, but that doesn't mean they were the direct heist. And then it probably got bought by some underground art trade. I'm not sure how that works, but yeah, I think it was just guys paid potentially police by some really rich dude and crime circles to rob people.

An underprotected art museum, I think. Yeah. Which is boring. I prefer Charlie's for coolness, but that's what I think probably happened. Yeah. I think they accidentally stole the artwork. They thought it was opening hours. They were asking to be let in. They were just looking. They fell over, knocked over a painting, and then just decided to take it. That's a good idea, I think, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he stands up and is like, oh, well, gentlemen, this is a robbery. Yeah.

May as well take this Chinese goo or whatever it's called and the financial eagle. I guess we didn't solve it at the end of the day. I guess it will remain unsolved. I'm going to submit my theory just in case. And then they can give me the $10 million if it helps in any way. Yeah, let us know if you get the $10 million. Then we can say that we solved it.

I'll keep you. Can you imagine that fucking red thread episode? We actually, I hope we eventually do solve something.

Yeah, anyone listening, if you have any actionable intel on these stolen pieces of art, we can work together and split this pot. Charlie's next video is like, it's his normal setup, the thumbnail's him sitting in the chair, the title of the video's like, I did it, and everything's the exact same, except behind him is the Sea of Galilee on the wall.

Right next to God's lap and everything. It's just windbreaks. No one notices. You don't even mention it or anything. It's just in the background. Hey guys, so I found this painting. It's pretty cool. Alright, that's about it. See ya.

All right, well, I guess that's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. That was fun. I really enjoyed that case. It's a good case. Very good case. Yeah, I love heists. They're so interesting. But what's interesting about this one is that it was the most famous heist of all time. Well, $500 million. And it was so simple. There was no crawling under laser grids or grappling down through the roof or anything. They literally just walked in and took paintings.

There's nothing else to it. So that's, that's, I mean, simplicity is key. I think is what we should take away from this. If you're going to perform any bank heists or art gallery heists, just try the most simple thing and see how it goes. And don't blame us if you end up in jail, but that's what we're taking from this. Thank you very much for listening to the red thread and taking our advice. Let us know what your personal theories are on

on the heist i want to see some really wacky ones that we couldn't think of if there's any like crazy additional stuff that you guys can come up with please let us know um but anyway that's gonna do it until next time this has been the red thread goodbye bye see you on the next one bye