01x08 - The Gardner Museum Heist

[bunniefuu]

A Boston museum with
over a billion dollars

in priceless paintings:

the site of one of the
largest art thefts in history.

The Vermeer is one
of the most valuable

paintings in the world.

[tense music]

Despite
security precautions,

the thieves walk right in.
[buzzer buzzes]

This could have
been Fort Knox.

But you let the people in,

then it really doesn't matter
how much security you have.

The brazen theft is only
the start of the story.

Soon, there are
multiple suspects

and a trail of dead bodies.

His throat was
slashed so deep

that he was nearly decapitated.

Now that's a message.

And above all,
one burning question:

will the invaluable paintings
ever be found?

The paintings could be here,
the paintings could be there.

What happened to the paintings?

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

The masterminds
behind every great heist

see what most people don't...

♪ ♪

Risking everything to pull
off the score of a lifetime.

It takes a bold plan...

♪ ♪

The right team...

and the skill to stay
one step ahead of the law.

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

[energetic music]

♪ ♪

[chuckles]
It's the 1980s,

and as art prices skyrocket,

professional thieves
turned from robbing banks

to robbing museums.

Boston's Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum

is one-of-a-kind.

A gem of a target, thanks
to its peerless collection

of old masters.

When it opens in 1903,
the Gardner boasts

the largest private collection
of art in America.

♪ ♪

Isabella Stewart Gardner
is a force of nature.

She's five feet tall,
shock of red hair.

She was someone
who used her wealth

to create something to leave
to the city of Boston.

♪ ♪

She built, in my opinion,

one of the most beautiful museums

that this world has ever seen.

Nothing can prepare you, really,

for the experience
of walking into the Gardener.

It is a riot, a visual feast.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

That museum is jam-packed
with very expensive artwork,

priceless artwork.

♪ ♪

She had the Vermeer,
which is one of

what, 31 or 32 in the world?

Vermeer's "Concert."
What an amazing painting.

♪ ♪

You have various Rembrandts.

"Christ on the Sea
of Galilee."

A museum like no other.

You'd find something new
every time.

♪ ♪

[upbeat music]

When Isabella Stewart
Gardner dies in 1923,

her will
establishes an endowment

to keep the museum open
exactly how she left it.

The will stipulates
that no paintings

should be taken away,
and nothing added either.

She was not going
to lose this museum

to some future generation
that had terrible taste

or a bad vision or didn't share
her love for it,

so she wrote a will
that stipulates that

nothing can be removed
or even moved.

Unfortunately,

Gardner's will
also prevents the museum

from making necessary upgrades
to its security systems.

But without her leadership
it began to fray,

and I think security
was one of the things

that was fraying badly.

By 1981, the museum security
is so outmoded

that one East Boston mob crew
can't resist an easy score.

The museum had classical
music concerts twice a week.

They were going to set off
smoke bombs at the recital...

[classical music being played]

Cause all sorts of havoc,

and then steal
what they wanted to steal.

♪ ♪

[alarm wailing]

Well, they got caught
by the FBI.

But now the idea
of the museum was vulnerable,

that gets known.

After this close call,
the museum decides

to finally make
several security improvements.

[suspenseful music]

One of them was
a motion detector system.

They put sensors
in the doorways

of each of the galleries.

And there is a
dot matrix printout

of all of their movements

that's being fed through a
printer in the guard station.

[dot matrix printer whines]

High-tech solutions
are only as good

as the people who use them,

so the board establishes
new security protocols

for the guards.

There would be two
night shift guards on duty.

One would be
walking through the museum

going floor to floor,
checking the rooms

to make sure there were
no issues or disturbances.

The other guard would
be at the guard desk,

and monitoring the systems
by the Palace Road door.

Now under the desk,
there's a button

that he could push
and alert to the police.

[suspenseful music]

The Palace Road door
leads directly

into a last line of defense
for the guards.

There's a man trap.

When you have those visitors,

you can let them
in the first door.

And then when that door shuts,

they're kind of
locked in there, right?

They can leave, but
they can't get in the museum.

Despite the new systems,

a new pair of professional
thieves spot a weakness.

They picked the perfect date
for a fresh heist attempt...

March 17, 1990.

[rowdy upbeat music]

March 17 is a holy holiday
in Boston.

St. Patrick's Day.

♪ ♪

[chuckling] It's a
boozy riot across the city.

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

The first few hours of
the St. Patrick's night shift

start like any other.

The two guards take turns
patrolling the museum.

It's these two young men
in their early 20s

who are guarding the museum.

Rick Abath, a Berklee College
of Music school dropout,

with long ringlet
rockstar hair,

and Randy Heston,
who is also a music student.

He likes the night shift,
he says,

because it gives him a chance
to practice his trombone.

So Randy takes the desk.

His job is to sit at the desk,
monitor cameras.

Rick does his first rounds.

♪ ♪

All the lights were out in
the museum during third shift,

and you would walk around
with a flashlight.

♪ ♪

During the second rounds
that Rick does,

a fire alarm goes off.

[bell ringing]

No smoke condition,
nothing that indicates a fire.

They turn it off.

[alarm falls silent]

What we understand is that

Rick Abath
goes to the Palace Road door

and opens it and closes it

and comes back into
the museum.

♪ ♪

So we're talking about
March 18, 1990.

Early morning hours of the...
past midnight, 1:00.

♪ ♪

It's a little bit rainy, misty.

Not too cold.

And that's when
two individuals

walk up
to the Palace Road door...

♪ ♪

Ring the doorbell.

[tense musical crescendo]

[suspenseful music]

The two thieves have
a clear, detailed plan.

They start
by approaching the museum

wearing stolen
police uniforms.

The only question is
will their disguises work?

So there they are,
outside the door.

There's a closed circuit
TV camera

shining right down on them.

Inside the museum
less than 30 feet away

and Rick sees these two men

announcing themselves
police officers.

"We're here
to investigate a disturbance."

"What disturbance?
There's no disturbance here."

The policy
at the Gardner Museum is

nobody gets in the museum
after it's closed.

Even if it's Boston Police
or law enforcement,

what you're supposed to do
is call Boston Police.

Rick Abath is familiar
with the protocol,

but he chooses
not to follow it.

He lets the two men
inside the first door.

Thanks to the man trap,

he has one more chance
to look them over.

Rick, he was very trusting

and a good-hearted person.

He decided it'd be OK
to let them in.

♪ ♪

[buzzer buzzes]

And unfortunately,
it went totally wrong.

[tense music]

Instead of
following protocol,

Rick buzzes them in
and the heist is on.

This could have
been Fort Knox.

But you let the people in,

then it really doesn't matter
how much security you have.

By letting those two men
into the museum,

Rick Abath unleashed the
greatest art heist in history.

♪ ♪

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

March 18, 1:24 a.m.

Two thieves
posing as policemen

make it through
the first security door

at the Gardner Museum.

He saw the uniforms
and just assumed

that they
were telling the truth.

Guard Rick Abath
has one last opportunity

to stop them
getting any farther.

Instead, he buzzes them in.

Then Rick says to them,
"There's nothing going on."

[dramatic tense music]

They ask,
"Who else is in the museum?"

"There's one other guard."
"Call him down."

And Rick has a two-way radio.
He calls down Randy.

As that second guard comes
to the guard desk,

the individuals claiming
to be Boston police officers

tell the guard at the desk,
"Can I see your ID?

And at that point,
the alleged officers say,

"There's a warrant out
for your arrest."

And Rick says,
"Mo, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm not wanted for anything."

By stepping away,
he is going to be out of reach

from hitting the alarm bell.

The one security alarm bell
the museum has

to the outside world.

And at that point,

they place handcuffs
on the first guard.

The other guard who came down
to the first floor,

they tell him to get up
against the wall.

And Randy's going,
"Oh, my God.

What is going on?
What did Rick do?"

But then no sooner
is he wondering this,

then he's being handcuffed.

That's when the
one bad guy declared,

"Gentlemen, this is a robbery."

The fake police take control
of the real guards

and tell them what will happen

if they tell the cops anything
about the robbery,

and it's not pretty.

Tells them, "We now know who
you are and where you live.

"Keep quiet, cooperate,
and don't ever say anything

or we're going
to come hunt you down."

They proceed
to tape their eyes

so they can't see where they're
going and then they're moved.

Both led down to the basement.

♪ ♪

At that moment,
those guards didn't know

if they were going to live
or die.

With the guards
under control,

the men now have free reign
of the entire museum.

But their movements
are still being tracked

by the motion detectors
throughout the building.

The dot matrix printer
that is tracking movement

through the galleries
shows exactly where they went,

for how long,
and what they did there.

It's the closest thing,
I think,

to sort of peeking
through a keyhole

and watching
the whole thing unfold.

The two thieves
head to the second floor

filled with masterpieces
of the Dutch Golden Age.

They start with a painting

worth an estimated
$100 million,

Rembrandt's "Christ in the
Storm on the Sea of Galilee."

It's an enormous painting
on which we see Christ

and the Apostles at sea
in a storm.

♪ ♪

And the apostles look like

they're staring death
in the face

and Christ alone
is just serene among them.

And if you look very closely,
there's Rembrandt.

He's painted himself in it.

So it's a remarkable painting.

It's full of movement and fury
and it's his only seascape,

so it is one of a kind.

♪ ♪

The way they take it is brutal.

[abrasive dissonant music]

They slash it from
its rosewood stretcher.

[dramatic music]

They slash it
right out of the frame.

They did
the same butcher job

to the prize of the room,
Vermeer's "Concert."

So they're really
wreaking havoc inside the room.

♪ ♪

What they did
to priceless art was violent.

[jazz music]
[glass shatters]

There's broken glass
and splinters everywhere.

They take
a Rembrandt etching.

It's about the size
of postage stamp,

but it's in a very
elaborate frame.

And we know that
they spend the time

unscrewing every screw
on that frame.

Requires a special tool.

If you're stealing millions
of dollars' worth of paintings,

you would imagine
time would be of the essence.

That you wouldn't be spending
time unscrewing this item

and taking it out of the frame
when frankly,

you probably could have
put it in your pocket.

And they took one more thing
from the Dutch room,

which doesn't fit
with the theme of that room.

A 12th century Chinese gu,
or beaker.

It's an ancient Chinese vase
that they decided to take.

You'd think you could just
grab that off the table,

but that was actually
screwed to the table.

So somebody wasted
significant time

getting that gu, which, again,

is not close to being
in the top 300 items of value

in that museum.

♪ ♪

There seems to be no pattern
to the items they're taking.

They aren't the most valuable,
nor the easiest to carry.

The violent way the thieves

cut the paintings
from the frames...

[scoffing chuckle]

Suggest they don't understand
the true value of the art.

[dramatic music]

In the Short Gallery,

they take five
equestrian sketches by Degas.

Not his usual fare.

It just seemed like, "Oh,
those look like nice drawings.

Let's take those, too."

♪ ♪

And they also tried to
take a silk Napoleonic flag.

But they couldn't get
that banner out of its frame.

But they take the finial...

the eagle-shaped finial
at the top of the flagpole.

[tense music]

They take the final painting
of the heist

from an entirely different
part of the museum.

There's a painting taken
from the Blue Room,

which is on the first floor.

And that is Manet's
"Chez Tortoni."

It's a portrait of a man
wearing a top hat.

He has brown eyes and
he's kind of looking at you

in this beguiling way.

And what's interesting
is that

there's no motion detected

in that room
during the robbery.

While they may not know
a lot about the art

they're stealing,
they do seem to know a lot

about the museum's
security setup.

The bad guys,
when they left,

they saw the
motion detector transcript

was being printed out
at the guard's desk

and they ripped that out
to steal the transcript

of where they had been,
how they had done it.

Now what they didn't realize

is that the computer hard drive
kept a record

of what was on that printout.

So while they took the paper,

we were able
to determine after,

by using the hard drive
of the computer,

where they had been.

[VCR clicking]

Then the thieves go
into the security office

and take the videotape
from that evening.

So obviously,
we couldn't see

what the security cameras
showed during the robbery.

♪ ♪

One leaves first,
and a few minutes later,

the second leave,
and that's it.

They get in the car,
presumably, drive away.

And those paintings
or individuals

are never seen
or heard from again.

What we know is that
the thieves were in the museum

for 81 minutes,
which is an astonishing length

of time for a heist.

Most heists are smash-and-grab.

You know, three minutes tops.

It makes me wonder...

[laughing]
Why didn't they take more?

In those 81 minutes,

the thieves take
13 priceless pieces of art

and vanish into thin air.

The museum sits quiet
for the next five hours.

♪ ♪

So it's the morning
of Sunday, March 18.

The guards for the next shift
show up.

♪ ♪

The day shift comes
and realize there's a problem.

The guards aren't here.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

We've reached
a new frontier here

in the annals of art crime.

♪ ♪

I mean, this is brazen.
This is big.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

At 7:45 Sunday morning,

the day shift arrives
at the Gardner Museum.

Normally, the night guards
buzz them in.

Not today.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

As soon as they step inside,
they know something's wrong.

After they enter
the Dutch room,

they call the police.

Boston police come.
They sweep the museum.

They find a scene
of destruction.

It's very clear that
this has been a very brazen

and very violent robbery.

Investigators are alarmed
by the destruction they see

and the art they don't.

They took all of the
Rembrandts off the walls.

It's a half a billion
up to a billion dollars' worth

of paintings.

One of them, mercifully,
was not stolen.

It's a large self-portrait
of Rembrandt at the age of 23

that was off the wall and
turned away from the doorway.

It was worth many, many
times more than the etching.

It seems like
they took it off the wall

and then forgot about it.

Ten minutes
after they arrive,

the police
locate the missing guards.

They find the two guards

gagged and bound
in the basement of the museum.

Each is handcuffed about
50 feet away from each other,

and their heads
are duct taped.

They're duct taped this way,

they're duct taped
around their eyes.

So of course,
that was traumatic for them.

Relieved that both guards
were alive,

authorities immediately
work with them

to build a description
of the suspects.

What these thieves
looked like

depended on the memory of the
two men who had seen them.

They believe they had
Boston Police uniforms.

One was, I think,
shorter and stocky.

Dark eyes, dark hair,
olive skin.

One was thinner, wiry.
One had glasses on.

The other has kind of
a bowl cut and dark eyes.

Both of them had mustaches,

but they kept on
pressing the mustache down,

so it gives a belief
that they were false.

That's about all.

Even more important
than what they looked like

is how well they seemed
to know the museum's

new security features.

They had gotten the guards
away from the panic button.

And they knew where
the cellar door was.

They know where
to get the videotape

in the security
director's office,

and they know
to take the printout.

In this case,
it could be an inside job.

As news of the robbery
shocks the art world

and tips start coming in,

the FBI focuses on
the most obvious possibility.

This was an inside job.

♪ ♪

The FBI
takes particular interest

in the security guard

who made one too many mistakes
that night,

Rick Abath.

Rick Abath is a 23-year-old
music school dropout

who loves the Grateful Dead

and jamming with his band, Ukiah.

He was just a cool,
mellow guy.

Nothing about Rick said
to me that he was subversive

or he was up to no good.

I think that a lot of the
speculation in this case

about Rick Abath's motives
and guilt

revolve around that one act
of opening the door

and closing the door

and coming back inside
before the heist.

That's a weird thing to do.

Why are you checking
the outside door?

Because you can see it.
There's a window right there.

You can just look
and see if it's ajar.

Is he just making sure
the door is locked,

or is he signaling bad guys
that it's safe to come in?

There's one more thing that
makes Rick a prime suspect.

One of the masterpieces,
the Manet,

is stolen from that
first floor Blue Room.

Based on the printout
from security,

the thieves footsteps
are never found downstairs

in the Blue Room where
the "Chez Tortoni" is taken,

and the empty frame is left on
the security director's chair,

which seems like a little
bit of a...you know.

It's a little bit of a slap, maybe.

Despite the
lingering questions,

the FBI'S investigation
can't find any evidence

tying Rick Abath to the crime.

I worked the case
for six years.

There was never enough evidence
to charge anybody.

Whether a guard,
an insider,

never enough to pull
the trigger on an indictment.

Rick Abath is now a dead-end
for investigators,

the first of many.

Over the next several months,

the FBI looks into
every clue they unearth,

including a tip that the art
thieves have ties to the mob.

[chuckles]

More than a year
after the heist,

they get a fresh lead

from the Massachusetts State
Police who've been monitoring

a crooked car shop
called TRC Auto.

[suspenseful music]

TRC Auto is owned
by Carmello Merlino...

♪ ♪

An Italian mob guy
who has a crew of criminals.

They're heavy hitters,
these guys.

You need a criminal?

You go there,
you can get yourself a criminal

to steal anything you want.

The Massachusetts
State Police

have been keeping eyes on
these guys for quite some time

for, amongst other things,
drugs, stolen items,

as well as the heist itself.

At the time,
there were informants

who claimed that
Carmello Merlino

had some hand either
in the actual heist

or knew where the artwork was.

Law enforcement starts
to get ins on the TRC g*ng

because very quickly,
they know that this is the g*ng

that is most likely
the source of the heist.

The FBI takes a closer look
at drug dealers, thieves,

and enforcers
surrounding Merlino.

Two men quickly rise
to the top

of a possible suspects list...

George Reissfelder
and Lenny DiMuzio.

Some people thought
they matched the sketches

that both guards
cooperated in.

Reissfelder in particular
does more than

just fit the description.

There are whispers that he may
have one of the paintings.

The thing for Reissfelder

that elevated him
to the top of the list

is the fact that
his own brother

claimed to have seen
Manet's "Chez Tortoni"

hanging over George's bed
at his apartment in Quincy.

Authorities are eager
to talk to Reissfelder

and discuss
his personal art collection.

They don't get chance.

In March of 1991,

he's found dead under
suspicious circumstances.

And the Manet
he supposedly held?

Nowhere to be found.

You have a guy who
is not an injector found dead.

The needle was
still in his arm.

And those who knew him
said he didn't inject drugs.

He was afraid of needles, actually,

so it's a little suspicious.

What's interesting about
it is that Carmello Merlino

was there at the house.

He went into his apartment
before the police arrived.

And if the "Chez Tortoni"
really was over George's bed,

then Carmello
could have gone in there

and moved it beforehand.

♪ ♪

With Reissfelder permanently
out of the picture,

investigators turn
to his alleged partner

in the crime, Lenny DiMuzio.

But just like
the Gardener paintings,

DiMuzio is missing.

Lenny DiMuzio
visits his sister,

disappears on that visit.

[suspenseful music]

A year after the
Gardner Museum heist,

and one of the possible
suspects is already dead.

Another, Lenny DiMuzio,
is missing.

Three months after
Reissfelder's body is found,

DiMuzio resurfaces, dead.

Lenny DiMuzio is found
over in East Boston

in the trunk of a car...

and he's been shot
multiple times.

Another dead-end.

Could this be Carmello Merlino
cleaning up loose ends

or something else?

A message to other
crew members

who may have ties
to the heist?

♪ ♪

With their best leads stymied,
law enforcement gets creative.

Some say it takes a thief
to catch one,

so they turn to New England's
most notorious art thief,

Myles Connor.

[psychedelic rock music]

If Myles hadn't
been in prison at the time,

people would have figured,
"Case solved. It's Myles."

But there was some speculation
that perhaps,

he knew who did it.

When authorities
interview him in jail,

Connor tells them
quite a tale.

While Myles Connor
is sitting in federal prison

in California,
he receives a visitor,

a friend who said,
"We did this thing.

We did it for you.
We're going to get you out."

And by we,
he means Bobby Donati and him.

And it makes total sense
to Myles.

Connor's connection
with Bobby Donati runs deep.

They've stolen paintings before.

[energetic music]

In the 1970s,

he and Bobby Donati
cased the Gardner.

They were walking through
the Short Gallery,

and Bobby Donati looked at the
top of a silk Napoleonic flag.

He looked up at the bronze
eagle finial and said,

"I like that."
[laughs]

I mean, you can
kind of picture it soldered

onto the hood of a Cadillac.

♪ ♪

Investigators soon
uncover something

even more interesting.

Donati has close ties
to TRC Auto and its boss.

Bobby Donati is drawn
to this TRC g*ng.

I think he finds
in Carmello Merlino

a father figure, a patriarch
that they could please,

that they could do things for.

And there's a further tie
to the heist.

He's a race fan.
Donati loves the horses.

And it has been suggested

that he just liked
these Degas horse sketches.

He just liked them.
[laughs]

Just took them.

Police scour the streets
of Boston looking for Donati.

Unfortunately, someone else
finds Bobby first.

Donati is ambushed
outside his home.

They surprise him at night.
They grab him.

It's obvious
there's been a struggle.

You know, blood on the porch.

And then he's found days later
in the trunk of a car.

Bobby Donati was
stabbed multiple times,

and his throat
was slashed so deep

that he was reportedly
nearly decapitated.

Now that's a message.

Not only are the
leads drying up,

but the bodies are piling up.

The issue with so many
of these theories and suspects

is that almost all
of the prime suspects are dead.

[suspenseful music]

In 1997,
seven years after the heist,

a desperate Gardener Museum
ups the reward money

to a whopping $5 million.

It works.

A few months later,

an antiques dealer
comes forward

with some bold claims
and some bold demands.

[upbeat music]

Bill Youngworth
had a store in Brighton.

♪ ♪

He claims that

he can broker the return
of the artwork.

♪ ♪

And he has demands.

He wants the $5 million reward

and he has some criminal
charges pending against him

which he wants
to get dismissed.

And he wanted Myles Connor,

the notorious New England
art thief,

released from prison.

♪ ♪

Billy Youngworth
is willing to prove

he really has the goods,
but he doesn't trust the FBI.

Instead,
he makes a tantalizing offer

to a "Boston Herald"
journalist.

Youngworth will show the journalist

one of the masterworks
stolen from the Gardner

if he agrees
to write about it.

The journalist
gets into a car

with people he doesn't know

and doesn't know what's going
to happen on the other end.

[suspenseful music]

He was blindfolded
and driven to someplace

outside of New York
and taken to a warehouse.

You can imagine the anxiety.

He enters a warehouse,

which is completely dark inside.

There, he's walked in
and shown by flashlight

some tubes in the corner.

And the reporter recounts
this canvas being unfurled,

and what...he's only allowed
to see it for a glimpse.

[suspenseful music]

Seven years
after it went missing,

a Boston journalist
catches a glimpse

of one of
Rembrandt's masterpieces

in a dingy warehouse
in Brooklyn.

He sees "The Storm
on the Sea of Galilee."

They roll it back up and said,
"There it is."

And they take him back.

The next day,
he starts writing his article.

Big headlines:

"We've seen it!"

Front cover, "Boston Herald,"

with a picture of "The Storm
of Galilee" on the front.

And it makes a noise
throughout the world.

I mean, everyone was like,
"oh, my God.

Is this the first credible
sighting of this painting?

♪ ♪

After seven long years,
the museum is eager

to make a deal
with Billy Youngworth,

but the FBI is, well,
less trusting.

They have some demands
of their own

if Youngworth wants the money:

more solid proof
than one man's word.

[suspenseful music]

The "Herald" also asked
for some other proof,

and was provided
some paint chips

that Youngworth claimed
came from the Rembrandt.

A few months later,
the FBI analyzes the sample

and says, "This is not
from that Rembrandt."

They're ruled out

as being from
"Storm on the Sea of Galilee."

The FBI thinks
the painting is fake

and Youngworth
is a con artist.

They refuse to make a trade.

When I was interviewing
conservators about

how likely it would be

that "Storm on the Sea
of Galilee"

could have been rolled
and then unfurled.

They say the painting
would have been destroyed

because there's so much
lacquer on it.

There was no follow-up

from the U.S. Attorney's
office in Boston about it

because they believed that

he was peddling
in fake paintings.

♪ ♪

Although interest
in the missing artwork

is at an all-time high
since the heist,

the investigation
is at an all-time low.

With no new leads,

the FBI circles back
to the nagging suspicion

that the TRC g*ng
is responsible...

so they plant someone
on the inside.

It was around the time
that this informant

started working at TRC.

Well, he reports back
to his FBI agent

that they're talking
about the Gardener there.

With all eyes
back on the garage,

investigators turn their gaze
to someone new...

a frequent visitor there,
Bobby Guarente.

If you make a Venn diagram
of all the bad guys,

and I did do this...
[laughs]

Everybody kind of
crosses paths with everybody,

and Bobby Guarente
is in the middle of it.

Guarente is an
interesting character.

He's sort of a
jack-of-all-trades,

and he is able to move fluidly

through a lot
of different areas

and amongst different groups.

A lot of people used Guarente

because he was trusted by
most people in this industry

that they're in as much as
people can be trusted.

My sense is
Donati reached out to him.

The only person I know
who had the network

that could fence it
was Guarente.

If Bobby Guarente had
a hand in moving the artwork,

the FBI is unable
to get any answers from him.

He dies in 2004.

Surprisingly,
from natural causes.

But this time,

Guarente's death
is not a total dead-end.

The FBI and the museum
get tips about a home

that Bobby Guarente owned
in Maine,

reported to have
a spot big enough

to hide a very big painting
like "Storm in the Sea."

And they find a hiding spot

that fits
exactly this description.

When they return the key to
Bobby Guarente's widow Elene,

she said,
"I've seen those paintings.

My Bobby had some
of those paintings."

Although the prize paintings

are no longer
in their hiding place,

the FBI believes
they were there.

More importantly, they think
they know where they went.

Elene Guarente tells a story
about being in Portland, Maine

with her husband,
Bobby Guarente,

and another fellow,
Bobby Gentile,

this Connecticut mobster.

[chuckles] Everyone
has a best friend here.

Bobby Gentile is a small-timer

out of Manchester, Connecticut,

right outside of Hartford.

Guarente and Gentile have
dinner with their wives

at this seafood restaurant.

At one point during that meal,
they got up

and went to the parking lot
and went back inside.

And then on the way home,
Guarente said,

"You don't have to worry
about those pictures anymore."

He passed them
to Bobby Gentile.

[suspenseful music]

It's now May, 2012,

22 years since
the Gardner Museum heist,

and the FBI has chased leads

from Boston to Brooklyn
to Maine.

Their hunt now turns
to Connecticut

and a small-time crook
named Bobby Gentile.

So here's Bobby Gentile
in his 70s,

living on a leafy street
in Manchester, Connecticut,

when he's served with
a warrant by the FBI

to search his property.

They don't find what they're
looking for in the house.

They leave, they come back

with a warrant
for the garden shed.

There were probably
ten, 15 vehicles.

They had beagles
and golden retrievers

and video cameras,
guys in lab coats.

I mean,
this was the production.

They used side scan sonar

to see if there was
anything buried in the yard.

And there was a void
under the shed.

And that's
where they hit pay dirt.

[tense music]

More than two decades
after the hunt began,

the FBI is searching
mobster Bobby Gentile's home,

and they find
a secret compartment

under a backyard shed.

I'm sitting
outside of the shed,

and they're
cutting into the floorboards.

The excitement was palpable.

And then they
pull the floorboard up,

and everybody's
looking over the top.

And then it's just...

defeat.

It's empty.

Despite
their disappointment,

the FBI finds evidence

that's both intriguing
and incriminating.

In the basement,
they have the "Boston Herald"

from the day after the theft.

Inside is a sheet of paper,

and it has all 13 pieces
that were stolen

with what the piece would buy
on the black market.

And unfortunately
for my client,

they found a lot of g*ns

and a few police uniforms,
uh, which was, uh,

tough to explain.

It all looks really bad
for Bobby Gentile.

The circumstantial evidence
is strong

that he had something
to do with the heist.

Looking
at serious prison time

for the ill*gal weapons,

Bobby Gentile agrees
to tell the FBI

everything he knows
about the stolen art.

The only way
that they're going

to be able to verify that
information is on a polygraph.

And he says, "I'll tell
them anything they want."

So they put up a whole bunch
of pictures on the wall,

of all of the objects
that were taken.

And they say,
"Have you ever seen this one?"

He says, "No."
"Have you ever seen this one?"

He says, "No."
"Have you ever seen this one?"

Fails it.
Every question they ask him.

Like most aspects
of this case,

the interrogation
of Bobby Gentile

creates more questions
than answers.

Gentile is sent to prison
for the rest of his life,

which may not be very long.

I was called by the
U.S. Marshals office

and they said,
"Your client is dying."

I drive to the hospital.

He was very upset and he kept
saying over and over again,

I can't die here,
I can't die here.

So I said to him,

"Bob, there has to be
something that you know.

"There has to be,
because there's all this smoke

"around this case,
and it's all over you.

You have to know
where this fire started."

And I said, "And if you
just give that to me,

you can die at home
in your bed with your wife."

And he looked at me desperately,

and tears were coming down
both of his eyes.

And he just said,

"There ain't no paintings, kid.

There ain't no paintings."

Bobby Gentile
survives that health scare,

but dies in September, 2021,

and the location of
a $1/2 billion in stolen art

may have died with him.

Authorities believe
that Gentile, at one point,

knew where that artwork was.

You know,
maybe they were in the ditch.

They were ruined in a flood
that took place

in the back yard
of the Gentiles' house.

Though the FBI is still
trying to recover the artwork,

they now believe they know

who committed
the original robbery:

suspects George Reissfelder
and Lenny DiMuzio.

The fate of the art
is not as clear.

The FBI
holds a press conference

that says, basically,

"We know who did it and
we know where the artwork went.

We just don't know
where it is right now."

They believe that
the thieves were dead.

They had very good information
that the artwork changed hands,

that it went through
organized crime circles

from Boston to Connecticut
to Philadelphia.

One theory is somebody had
them all together in one place

and died or was m*rder*d

and they're buried
and we can never find them.

But it's hard to imagine
that they're all in one place.

It's been over 30 years.

I have a hard time believing,
if they were broken up

amongst multiple groups
of people,

that nothing would have come
forward after this much time,

particularly
with a huge reward.

Today, the whereabouts
of the 13 pieces of artwork

remains a mystery,

and finding them is still
as urgent as it was

on March 18, 1990,
the day of the heist.

I do think the key
for this investigation

is for more people
to know about it.

If they're still around,

somebody will come across
one of them,

and they need to understand
the significance of it.

These don't belong
in some crawlspace

in an attic somewhere.

These belong back on the walls.

We'll work to get them back.
And who wins?

Our grandchildren win.

[dramatic music]

Until the artwork
is returned,

the frames hang empty
in the museum.

The reward for any information
leading to the recovery

now stands at 10 million bucks.

The Gardner robbery remains

the largest art theft
in world history,

and one
of history's greatest heists.

♪ ♪