Head of the FBI’s Art Theft Squad Not Sure if Stolen Gardner Museum Pieces Are Still in U.S.

by Rhonda Schwartz and Brian Ross |

Almost three decades after thieves stole a half-billion dollars’ worth of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the head of the FBI’s art theft squad says he’s not sure all of the 13 pieces remain in the United States.
Over the years, FBI agents have travelled to six continents in search of the missing art, which include works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet. The FBI recently conducted x-rays of a home in a western American state where a tipster suggested the art was hidden; there have been a number of highly-publicized searches and digs. All to no avail.
Special Agent Tim Carpenter could not say for sure whether the stolen masterpieces are still somewhere in the United States.
“Perhaps,” Carpenter said during an interview with the Law&Crime Network. “Only perhaps?” he was asked. “Perhaps,” he answered.
Despite this, Carpenter rejected suggestions that the FBI’s investigation of the 1990 theft had gone cold or had been a failure.
“Certainly not, no certainly not,” he said.
Carpenter said finding the stolen Gardner art remains his number one priority as the agent in charge of the 20-person FBI art theft squad. “I don’t think it’s a cold case because we do get a fair amount of information on that case,” he said.
In 2013, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney in Boston claimed they had determined who stole the art and had a good idea of where it was hidden. But since then, despite a $10 million reward offered by the museum, there have been no arrests and none of the art has been recovered.
“We have had successes, lots of successes, historically with rewards, but it hasn’t really seemed to nudge it loose on this case. So I’m not quite sure what it’s going to take,” Carpenter told the Law&Crime Network.
Whoever stole the art in the brazen break-in on St. Patrick’s Day night in 1990 would no longer face prosecution given the statute of limitations. And federal prosecutors have publicly said they would offer immunity to anyone who would come forward with the stolen pieces now.
“We’re very interested in the safe recovery and the full recovery of all of that artwork,” Carpenter said.
To date, the only physical evidence the FBI has acknowledged recovering are a handful of paint chips that the FBI has said are consistent with a “red lake” paint known to have been used by the Dutch artist Vermeer. His painting, The Concert, is considered the most valuable of the paintings stolen from the Gardner, although there is no direct link between the chips and that particular work.
The chips were sent anonymously to a reporter for the Boston Herald in 1997.
Carpenter says he is holding out hope that the case can be solved before the 30th anniversary of the theft, which would be March 2020.
“I’d like to say that if we could solve that case, I might just up and retire. That might be my swan song,” he said.
Ariel Tu and Nick Lindseth contributed to this report.
https://lawandcrime.com/ross-investigates/head-of-the-fbis-art-theft-squad-not-sure-if-stolen-gardner-museum-pieces-are-still-in-u-s/

A print of the Rembrandt van Rijn, “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee” from about 1633, oil on canvas painting that is among the missing from the March, 1990 Gardner Museum break in. Courtesy of the Dept. of Justice

FBI art heist agent says missing Gardner works may not be in U.S.

By Jonathan Ng | jng@bostonherald.com | Boston Herald

The head of the FBI’s art crime squad said he’s not sure if all 13 pieces stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on the Fenway are in the United States.
FBI Special Agent Tim Carpenter, who heads the bureau’s Art Crime Team, told legal news website Law & Crime the stolen artworks could “perhaps” be in the U.S. or abroad.

It was 29 years ago, in March 1990 in the early morning after St. Patrick’s Day, that two thieves posing as Boston police officers talked their way into the museum, tied up two security guards, and vanished with 13 centuries-old masterpieces worth more than $500 million. Stolen artworks include Rembrandt’s “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” and Vermeer’s “The Concert.”

“We get a fair amount of information on that case; we still address a lot of leads on that investigation,” Carpenter said. “It’s not that uncommon … especially high-end, when we are talking really valuable, really well-known pieces that were disappearing, going to ground for decades before they resurface. We hold out hope that we will locate those pieces.”
“We would really like to get those paintings recovered,” Carpenter added. “We are very interested in the safe and full recovery of all of that artwork.”

In 2013, the FBI and Carmen Ortiz, the former Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, announced they knew the identities of the two men who took the art. Since then, the museum has doubled its reward to $10 million in 2017 for the paintings’ safe return. But the FBI has not made any arrests and none of the 13 artworks have been recovered.
“As we have said in the past, the U.S. Attorney’s office will consider the possibility of immunity from criminal prosecution for information that leads to the return of the paintings based on the set of facts and circumstances brought to our attention. Our primary goal is, and always has been, to have the paintings returned,” Ortiz said in 2013.

Carpenter said: “We have had successes, lots of successes, historically with rewards, but it hasn’t nudged it loose on this case. So I’m not quite sure what it’s going to take.”
Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the art heist. “I’d like to say if we could solve that case, I might just up and retire. That might be my swan song,” said Carpenter.

Carpenter’s team was also behind the successful recovery of Tom Brady’s missing jersey from Super Bowl LI in 2017 — found in the possession of a former Mexican newspaper editor who had media credentials for the game.
“It’s not historical and yet it has this huge cultural value for people,” Carpenter said of finding Brady’s jersey. “It’s not about intrinsic, monetary or market value of a piece.”

Why is FBI Still in the Dark 29 Years After the Biggest Art Heist in US History?

Two men posing as police officers tricked their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on the night of 18 March 1990. They stole 13 pieces of work worth US$500 million, none of which has ever been recovered.

In 2013 the FBI held a high profile press conference and said they had made a huge breakthrough in the search for the paintings which had been stolen in what had become known as the Gardner Heist.
Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, said: "The FBI believes it has determined where the stolen art was transported in the years after the theft and that it knows the identity of the thieves.

DesLauriers added: "The FBI believes with a high degree of confidence that in the years after the theft, the art was transported to Connecticut and the Philadelphia region, and some of the art was taken to Philadelphia, where it was offered for sale by those responsible for the theft. With that same confidence, we have identified the thieves, who are members of a criminal organization with a base in the Mid-Atlantic states and New England."

That was six years ago. Since then the trail has gone cold again and the makers of a well-researched podcast, Last Seen, have cast doubt on the veracity of the information on which the FBI based their announcement.

Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum

So are we any closer to finding out what happened that night and who took the artworks?
At 1.24am two men in police uniforms pressed the buzzer at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and claimed they were investigating reports of a disturbance.
They were let in by dopey security guard Rick Abath, who was overpowered and handcuffed, along with another guard.
The two robbers took their time and picked out 13 masterpieces from renowned artists such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Manet and Degas as well as a Chinese vase, known as a gu, dating from the Ming dynasty.
The two most valuable pieces were The Concert, by Vermeer, and Christ in a Storm on the Sea of Galilee, the only seascape Rembrandt ever painted.

Last year the Boston Globe newspaper and Massachusetts radio station WBUR teamed up to produce a ten-part podcast investigation, Last Seen, which examined virtually all the various theories and probes which had been carried out into the Gardner Heist.
It also examined whether Abath was the "inside man" or just a part-time musician who happened to be on shift in a museum where security had become lax over the years.
Among the suspects identified in Last Seen were conman Brian McDevitt, professional criminals George Reissfelder and David Turner and Carmello Merlino.
Reissfelder's brother later told investigators he had seen a painting he later identified as being Chez Tortoni by Manet in Reissfelder's apartment.
Merlino ran TRC Autoelectric, a car repair workshop in the Dorchester district of Boston which became a hub of criminal activity, including cocaine smuggling and armed car robberies.
Merlino, who died in 2005, repeatedly indicated to FBI informants he knew what happened to the paintings or could get his hands on them but went to his grave taking whatever secrets he had with him.

The FBI's most recent investigation — which sparked the 2013 press conference excitement — centred on Bobby Guarente and an associate, Bobby Gentile.
Guarente died in 2004 but Gentile, 79, is still being hounded by the FBI, most recently when he was arrested during a sting operation in 2015.
Gentile's lawyer, Ryan McGuigan, told Last Seen his client was completely innocent and knew nothing about the Gardner Heist or the paintings and said if he did know anything he would have told the FBI to get them off his back.

Kelly Horan, the co-host of Last Seen, said there was one theory she would like to have explored — the suggestion that infamous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger stole the art and later gave it to the Provisional IRA.
Charles Hill, a former detective with Scotland Yard, told The Guardian last year: "After a shipment of weapons and ammunition was intercepted by the Irish navy off the coast of County Kerry in 1984, Whitey felt he owed one to his friends in the Republic. I believe he offered them the paintings."
Bulger, 89, was beaten to death by a fellow inmate only 24 hours after arriving at a prison in West Virginia in October last year.