Netflix has a four-part series on the Gardner Art Heist slated for release later in 2020. Barnicle TV New York is the alleged TV Production company, now in post-production.
The main story-line in the series reportedly follows an attempt in Ireland by Martin “The Viper” Foley, a former associate of gangster and notorious art thief Martin Cahill, to cut a deal with an Irish Republican named Tom “Slab” Murphy, said to have at one time been a Chief of Staff in the Provisional IRA.
Turbo Paul Hendry was working with Murphy on a similar deal decades ago, going so far as to meet with FBI special agent Mike Wilson at the American embassy in London, about getting the blessing of authorities in the U.S. to move forward on a recovery.
But when FBI Agent Mike Wilson ran it up the flag pole with the FBI Boston field office, said to be responsible for the stolen Gardner art recovery effort, Hendry was told no deals.
Two London based fixtures in the art recovery world, at least in the media, Charles Hill and Dick Ellis figure prominently in the Netflix series. Both were high ranking detectives in Scotland Yard’s art squad who have worked in the world of stolen art recovery as private investigators for decades. The two are not partners, however, and have not always seen eye-to-eye on important matters related to a recovery. Hill, for instance has stated his belief that one person now controls the art and dismissed Ellis’ contention that control of the art was spread out among many parties as “speculation.”
Some familiar faces to U.S. audiences in the world of art recovery in general and the Gardner Heist in particular are not slated to appear in the series. Robert Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s art crime team, and author of Priceless about his work recovering stolen art working undercover is not interviewed for the series.
Neither is Arthur Brand, who has been involved with the recovery effort of Gardner art in Ireland, the past few years, and whose criticisms of the Gardner museum’s efforts made headlines in Boston last year.
Reportedly Brand, as well as Turbo Paul Hendry, another critic of the Gardner heist investigation, were blackballed by Hill and Ellis along with the Gardner Museum security director Anthony Amore, all of whom refused to participate if Brand and Hendry were included in the Netflix four-part series.
Amore, who has steadfastly insisted for over a decade that there is absolutely no evidence that the paintings are in Ireland, is under contract to write a book, which was due for release to coincide with the 30 yrs Gardner Heist anniversary, delayed now until the Fall, about Rose Dugdale, a volunteer member of the Provisional I.R.A. who stole nineteen old masterworks by Gainsborough, Rubens, Vermeer and Goya from Russborough House in County Wicklow Ireland in 1974.
But aside from media spectacles like five hour lunches with a convicted(later got off on a tech) double Child Murderer, Myles Connor, who Amore insists is “the greatest art thief in history,” encourages Myles Connor, in his role as an actual participant in the art recovery effort and not just an unofficial surrogate for the FBI’s latest spin.
We all think we know how this series ends, but we can all hope for a surprise and happy ending.
Spoiler Alert: Not a single stolen Gardner artwork has been recovered, not one, zero, zitch, so like many before them, the Netflix four-part series on the Gardner Art Heist is a story without an ending, without the vital "Pay-off" for the viewer.
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