Original subtitles

- Tonight, the biggest art heist in history.

- Some of the pieces that were stolen

were priceless masterpieces.

- Some have been taken carefully and unscrewed out of frames.

Others have been cut out.

- The men are tied up with duct tape,

and they look like hell.

- Half a billion dollars in masterpieces gone

without a trace

and a three-decade search down many paths,

all leading nowhere.

- The thieves knew things that only an insider would know.

- This is not a guy who you would pick out of a lineup

and say, oh yeah, he's some kind of a criminal mastermind.

- Now, we'll uncover the top theories

behind this perfectly planned heist.

- If mobsters did steal it, who did they steal it for?

- Was he assassinated because

he knew something about the Gardner Museum?

- The fact that no one's come forward after 33 years,

that's what makes this case one

of the world's greatest mysteries.

- Who orchestrated the Gardner Heist and why?

(dramatic music)

- [Laurence] 8:15 AM on Sunday, March 18th, 1990,

guards arrive for their shift

at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

and are shocked to find the security desk empty.

They radio the overnight guards but get no reply,

so they call the Boston Police.

- The police find the guards in the basement,

bound and handcuffed to the pipes.

- The men are tied up with duct tape,

not only duct tape on their hands and feet,

but also duct tape around their face and their eyes,

and they look like hell.

- The first thing the police did

after freeing the guards and getting their statements,

was search the museum for evidence.

- What they discover is, place has been robbed.

- [Laurence] The police are shocked

at what they see in two galleries.

- Police find the galleries in disarray,

with broken glass, paint chips on the floor,

scraps of canvas hanging to frames

with the paintings themselves missing.

Some have been taken carefully and unscrewed out of frames.

Others have been cut out.

- [Laurence] One piece has also been taken

from a third gallery known as the Blue Room.

- It's the only piece taken

from the first floor of the Garden Museum.

- [Laurence] The theft is massive,

13 pieces of artwork valued today at about $500 million.

- The theft is the largest unsolved art theft in history,

as well as the largest theft of property in America.

- [Laurence] The Gardner Museum is a landmark in Boston,

modeled after a 15th century Venetian palace.

It holds the private collection of heiress and art patron,

Isabella Stewart Gardner.

- Wanting to share her collection with the public,

Gardner opened the museum in 1903.

- She spent about a decade making it to her perfection.

And it was a perfection.

It was, when it opened,

the largest privately owned collection of art in America.

- [Laurence] After the robbery,

investigators take inventory of the stolen items.

Many are one of a kind.

- The pieces that were stolen were priceless masterpieces.

One was a Rembrandt seascape, known as

"A Storm Over the Sea of Galilee."

It's the only seascape Rembrandt ever did.

Another piece was called "The Concert."

It was by Vermeer.

It's the only Vermeer that's missing in the world.

Those two pieces alone were valued at the time

of over $200 million.

Some of the other pieces

that they took were a few Degas sketches,

a Manet called "Chez Tortoni," which was a painting.

They took the fitting off of the first regimental flag

of Napoleon and also a Chinese beaker.

- [Laurence] Who could have pulled off

such a brazen heist and how did they do it?

- They really knew their way

around the sort of logistical structure of the institution.

They were really familiar

with the institution's security system.

And they navigated the galleries

in a way that was around the motion detectors.

- [Laurence] Not only did the thieves navigate

the museum with ease,

they appear to know the security systems.

- When police initially are investigating the crime scene,

they find that all of the security footage tapes

have been taken,

and they also find that printouts

of the motion detector data have been removed.

The thieves are, we can assume,

believing that they're leaving without any sort of trace

of where they've been or what they've done.

- The thieves knew things that only an insider would know.

- One of the first people that they looked at

as an insider was Richard Abath, who was a guard that night.

- He was a security guard,

so he knew the security system at the museum very well.

He was a 23-year-old, self-described hippie

who had admitted to coming to work inebriated several times.

- He had done things over that year

that should have gotten him fired,

and he just got away with things.

And I think he just got lackadaisical.

- [Laurence] Abath tells police that on the night of the heist,

he noticed a pair of unusual visitors outside of the museum

after closing time.

- Rick looks up at the closed circuit TV monitor,

there shows two men ringing the doorbell in police uniform

and one of them says, "Open up.

We are here to investigate a disturbance."

- It was St. Patrick's Day morning.

In other words, people were partying in Boston.

There were revelers out on the street.

So for two police officers

to show up at that point was not that unusual.

- But Rick's handbook says,

if someone comes to the side door

and demands entrance and you cannot get rid of them,

you call the police, but he doesn't.

- Abath's response really wasn't the best.

He said that he allowed these two gentlemen

to come in dressed as police officers

because he believed that they were Boston cops.

- [Laurence] Abath doesn't follow

the museum's clear security protocols that night,

but what he does do is radio his colleague

to come to the security desk

because the two police seemingly want to arrest him.

- The two police officers say

to Rick in a sort of a offhand way,

but convincing to Rick, "Hey, you look familiar to us.

Do we have a warrant for your arrest?"

And as Rick explains it, he thought, "I better go along

with what they're asking me to do,"

which was to step around away from the back of the table

and come out in front of us

so we can get a good look at you.

- These two police officers lure Abath

and his co-night guard away from their security desk,

which would be the only place

that they'd easily be able to call for help

from the outside world.

- As soon as he's within proximity,

they immediately place handcuffs on him.

And when the second security guard comes in,

he too is cuffed.

So now these two are totally confused.

They're wondering why are these police officers arresting them,

and it's at that moment that one of the police officers says,

"This is a robbery."

They lead him to the basement of the museum,

which was very odd because,

how would they even know that the museum had a basement?

And then they strategically placed them about 50 feet apart.

They duct tape them in an odd manner,

allowing one of the security guards the ability

to kind of peek through the spaces in between the duct tape.

- The robbers say to both guards before leaving them,

"Keep your mouth shut

and you'll get your reward in a year's time."

- [Laurence] The thieves leave the basement around 1:35 AM.

After waiting an hour or so

to ensure the guards are still tied up,

they exit the museum.

But first, they take the security tape

and a printout of the museum's motion detectors.

They make one crucial mistake.

- The thieves knew to take the security tape

and to take the printout,

but they didn't realize

that the hard drive had stored the movements also

so it could be reproduced,

and that's how we know where they went that night.

- [Laurence] Investigators can now track all the movement

through the museum that night,

beginning in the gallery known as the Dutch Room.

- The thieves travel both to the Dutch Room

and the Short Gallery.

The Dutch Room is where they're taking

five important old master works,

including the concert

and Rembrandt's "Storm on the Sea of Galilee."

And the Short Gallery is where they're taking

most of the Degas works on paper,

as well as the Eagle Finial.

- [Laurence] In all,

the thieves were in the museum for 81 minutes,

leaving at 2:45 AM.

When the police look at the motion detector data,

they find something highly suspicious.

- The only information shown on the motion detector data

in the Blue Room comes from hours before,

when Abath admits

that that was most likely him doing his rounds.

- To me, it's the mystery within the mystery.

It's the theft within the theft.

Why didn't their footsteps show up in that room?

Rick was in that room before the bad guys showed up.

Could he have taken it off the wall?

- [Laurence] Investigators learn more

about Abath's actions that night that raise alarm bells.

- We know that Rick Abath opened

and closed the Palace Road door.

Why would he do that?

That was not part of his rounds.

That was not part of the usual protocol.

It looks awfully fishy.

Was he signaling the robbers it's a good time to come?

- [Laurence] Despite their suspicions,

investigators never amass enough evidence

to charge Abath with the crime.

- This is a man who has lived

under a cloud of suspicion for his entire life,

but this is not a guy who you would pick out of a lineup

and say, "Oh yeah, he's some kind of a criminal mastermind."

- [Laurence] Ultimately, he moves out of the state,

finishes his college degree,

and works as a teacher's aide.

Then in 2015, he's back in the spotlight

after the FBI released a security video from the museum,

taken a night before the theft.

- The FBI video shows Mr. Abath buzzing in a person

to talk to him at the security desk,

which was against the rules.

So it took many years,

almost 25 years for the FBI to release that video.

- The museum and the FBI say,

"We want to know who this person was."

Rick was asked, "Do you know who this was?"

Rick says, "I don't remember it."

- Abath is giving inconsistent statements to the officers

and they're not buying any of it,

but eventually he's given two polygraphs and he passes.

- [Laurence] So if the theft was done by an insider,

who is responsible?

- Whether or not Abath was the inside man,

we know that this was not one person acting alone.

This was a group of people planning

and executing this heist.

- [Laurence] After failing to find enough evidence

to charge a night security guard at the Gardner Museum,

investigators looking into the case are stumped.

The FBI releases sketches

of the thieves posing as Boston Police

in hopes of identifying the suspects.

- Who were these two men?

And how did they carry out the theft

in the very particular way in which they did?

- [Laurence] The sketches reveal the thieves' disguises

and present a new angle in the investigation.

- In any type of a crime,

the first thing investigators are gonna do is look

at the forensic evidence that's left behind at the scene,

interview individuals who are witnesses,

and then look at other situations

that occurred in that area

that are like that, other art thefts that were unsolved.

Those are gonna be your primary suspects

after the insiders.

- Investigators are really gonna look

for key characteristics

that may be similar to other crimes committed,

whether they involve art

or a similar M.O. by particular criminals.

- Investigators looked at other crimes in the area.

In one particular case,

a failed theft at a similar museum.

Like the Gardner Museum,

the Hyde Museum Collection in the collector's former home

and the art is very similar, high value.

- The Hyde Collection has old masters combined

with French impressionist works.

It's often been called the Mini Gardner

and is another Palazzo style museum in Upstate New York.

- [Laurence] On December 22nd, 1980,

10 years before the Gardner Heist,

two crooks are on their way to rob the Hyde Museum

when they run into trouble.

- Two men hijack a FedEx truck.

They subdue the driver

in the back using duct tape and ether.

They tell her that if she behaves and cooperates,

that she will be rewarded.

- Some of the tools they brought along

with them were handcuffs, duct tape,

and knives to cut the paintings out of their frames,

just like in the Gardner Heist.

- [Laurence] The operation is called off

when the thieves get caught in traffic

and realize they can't get to the Hyde Collection

before closing time.

Authorities eventually catch up to the hijackers.

- The FedEx driver is able to ID the two men

who subdued her in the back of the truck.

They are the con artist, Brian McDevitt,

and his co-conspirator, Michael Morey.

The two men are convicted of kidnapping

and attempted grand larceny

and both spend several months in prison.

- [Laurence] Both men are out of prison

at the time of the Gardner Heist,

but the methodology in both cases is similar.

- While investigators are looking into the Gardner Heist,

they're again drawn to McDevitt and Morey

due to the similarities

between their attempted robbery of the Hyde Collection

and the robbery of the Gardner Heist.

The use of duct tape to bind the FedEx driver

and the duct tape used to bind the night guards,

the tools to remove paintings from their frames,

as well as this promise of if you behave,

you will be rewarded.

- So Michael Morey, he had an alibi.

The other guy, Brian McDevitt, not so much.

He didn't have an alibi,

and he was in the Boston area that night.

- [Laurence] The FBI spends more than a year

investigating Brian McDevitt.

- Brian McDevitt was a real character.

He had a history of fraudulent activity.

At one point, he even said

he was a member of the Vanderbilt family.

Later, he moved to Los Angeles,

he joined the Writer's Guild of America and said,

"I'm a successful screenwriter."

- In an FBI interview,

Morey told agents that McDevitt used the exact same language

in the Hyde attempt that was used during the Gardner Heist.

We know where you live, but if you behave,

you will be rewarded.

- The FBI are able to draw a connection

between McDevitt and the Gardner Heist,

given that McDevitt himself has a strong Boston accent,

which is consistent with the description

that Abath provided of the two thieves,

and McDevitt himself also seems

to resemble one of the early police sketches.

- [Laurence] In 1992, Brian McDevitt agrees

to talk to the FBI.

- McDevitt sits down with the FBI several times,

each time insisting that he's had nothing

to do with the Gardner Heist

despite the fact that he's not able to produce an alibi.

- [Laurence] The FBI also interviews a woman

who Brian McDevitt was dating at the time of the heist.

- McDevitt had this girlfriend who was over the moon with him.

I mean, she thought he was like an artistic genius.

He seemed very well-connected.

He had told his girlfriend he was going down

to New York the weekend of the heist

to attend this big soiree put on by the Writer's Guild.

- Upon his return,

he told her that the FBI may question her

and that if they did,

she was to tell them that they had spent

St. Patrick's Day weekend together,

which she ultimately refuses to do.

And McDevitt became very irate

at the fact that she refused to lie for him.

She learns that there was no Writer's Guild event

over the weekend of St. Patrick's Day.

She learns that he may not even be a screenwriter.

McDevitt tells her that he was actually involved

and had been paid to commit the Gardner Heist

and that he has to flee the country.

- She goes back and writes in her diary

that she can't believe what he just told her,

and she doesn't know how to process it.

And she can't even handle it.

And it's so huge she can't even write it down.

All that's in her diary is that Brian did a terrible thing.

He admitted it and I don't know how to process it.

- Feeling uncomfortable

and overwhelmed by the amount of information

that's been given to her by McDevitt,

she tells the FBI.

- When the FBI tries to find Brian McDevitt again,

he's gone.

- He fled to Medellin, Colombia.

The FBI were able to trace him there,

but he died before they were able to interview him again.

- McDevitt's death brought investigators

to another standstill with many questions remaining.

Was McDevitt himself actually involved in the theft

or was he just pretending to have been involved

to impress anyone who would listen?

- [Laurence] But McDevitt isn't the only

compelling suspect in this complicated case.

- [Laurence] In 1997, seven years after the Gardner Heist,

a reporter from the Boston Herald gets a strange call

from a man who claims to have information on the case.

His name is William Youngworth, Jr.

- He's an antique dealer with a criminal past,

very unscrupulous.

Youngworth contacts a reporter at the Boston Herald.

He makes it clear that he didn't steal the paintings,

but he says, "I know where the paintings

from the Gardner Heist are

and I can help you facilitate their return."

- Youngworth told him that he had not stolen the paintings,

but he could supply them to be recovered.

- He tells reporters that

he would be willing to return these pieces

to law enforcement if the conditions are right,

those conditions being receipt of the $5 million reward,

complete immunity for anything surrounding the Gardner Heist,

and leniency for himself on a separate unrelated case.

- And the FBI is saying to Youngworth,

"You've got to cooperate with us."

Youngworth says, "I will cooperate

if you give into my list of demands."

- [Laurence] In a surprising twist,

one of Youngworth's demands is the release

of his good friend Myles Connor from prison.

At the time,

Connor is serving 10 years for transporting stolen art.

- And Myles is a very cunning guy.

He's very well-known to the police around Boston,

both for art and antiques thefts.

- Youngworth and Connor have history.

They've been involved in criminality together,

and it's quite possible that all of this information

that Youngworth is offering is nothing more than a scam

to come up with money.

Myles Connor is a name that came up very early

in the investigation.

He was and probably still is one

of the most notorious art thieves in America.

- In the 1970s,

he was caught by an undercover FBI agent in an attempt

to sell stolen Andrew Wyeth artworks.

Now, at the same time,

around 1975 while he's out on bail,

Connor and some associates walk

into the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

and they steal a Rembrandt.

- Myles calls his lawyer a year later and says,

"Tell the FBI,

if they want to get their Rembrandt back from the MFA,

I'll give it back to them,

but they gotta do a deal with me, I want a deal."

He gets the painting to be brought back.

He goes into court.

He allows him to serve the terms together

as one eight-year sentence.

So Myles thinks he's got some leeway.

- [Laurence] Investigators wonder,

could Connor be connected to the infamous Gardner Heist?

If so, Youngworth isn't talking.

- Youngworth doesn't give much information

because he has a list of demands.

Before he fully cooperates,

he tells the FBI, "If you fulfill these demands,

I will get you back the paintings

that you're looking for."

- [Laurence] Both the FBI and the Boston Herald reporter

are skeptical and demand proof

that William Youngworth really does have the paintings.

- Subsequently, the two men set up a clandestine meeting.

The Boston Herald reporter is picked up by Youngworth

in the middle of the night

and driven to a warehouse in Brooklyn.

In this warehouse, Youngworth unfurls a painting

that the two men then examine by flashlight.

The Herald Reporter believes

he has seen Rembrandt's "Storm on the Sea of Galilee."

He then returns to Boston

where he publishes an article called "We've Seen It!"

where they demand further evidence,

but argue that they have seen and know the location

of at least one of the Gardner Heist paintings.

- [Laurence] The Herald's reporter stays on the story

and demands even more proof.

- Youngworth produces paint chips

from what he claims to be the Rembrandt.

And paint chips are very distinct

from different time periods.

Tracing something like lead can actually tell you

what era a paint was made.

- [Laurence] The Herald then turns over the paint flakes

to the FBI for more detailed analysis.

- In doing this scientific testing,

we're able to determine

that the paint chips themselves are about 350 years old

and the materials being used in those paint chips

are consistent with the place and time

in which both Rembrandt and Vermeer are painting.

- But in an interesting turn of events,

they do not match the Rembrandt painting.

- [Laurence] Despite being dated to the same era,

the paint chips Youngworth turned over were found

to contain oils and pigments not found

in the museum's stolen Rembrandt.

- The Gardner Museum felt the investigators didn't do

a thorough investigation,

that they didn't compare those chips

to every item that had been stolen.

There was never a comparison done

to see if, possibly,

they could have come from the Vermeer

who was a contemporary of Rembrandt.

- At the end of the day,

we don't know where Youngworth procured these paint chips.

All we know is that they don't match

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

- The officials from the Gardner Museum were left wondering

whether or not investigators could have done more

in terms of the comparison of the chips that were found

and have to ask, was this possible

that Youngworth did in fact have the Rembrandt?

- [Laurence] Neither Youngworth nor Connor are charged

in the Gardner case,

but Connor claims he has info to share.

- He said he thought about robbing the Gardner Museum.

He also said he never did it it,

but he did say he thinks he knows who did.

- The Gardner Museum Heist is a high stakes crime,

but not a violent one.

The thieves get in and out

without shedding a single drop of blood.

But as the FBI goes hunting

for suspects in Boston's underworld,

they start to realize that a fortune

that big may be worth killing over.

- Boston in the '90s is one

where organized crime continues to be rampant.

And with organized crime also come

law enforcement informants working with law enforcement

to help them solve crimes and gain leniency on the crimes

that they themselves are committing.

- [Laurence] Notorious art thief Myles Connor is no stranger

to making deals with the FBI.

And he points them to a dizzying new array of suspects.

- Now, in around 1991,

he hears that connections

that he has within the mob are going around,

bragging about having committed the Gardner Heist

without him.

- While in prison, Myles Connor states today

that he was visited by an old friend

who introduced him to Robert Donati.

Now, Robert Donati was a soldier,

a worker with the patriarchal mafia family

out of New England.

- Back in 1974, Connor says

that he cased out the Gardner Museum

with Robert Donati.

Didn't actually follow through with the break in.

Later in jail,

he finds out that Donati actually went ahead

and robbed the museum anyway without him.

- [Laurence] And Donati hasn't been especially discreet.

- Bobby Donati is going around town,

bragging about having committed the Gardner Heist

and having buried the paintings.

The speculation is that Donati is planning

to ransom the paintings back to law enforcement

to help free a fellow mobster.

- He wasn't doing it for money.

He was doing it for a friend.

Donati, I guess, believed that if he stole these paintings,

maybe he could make a deal

to try to get this friend's sentence reduced.

- With Donati, there's another red flag.

He was caught with police paraphernalia.

That's another connection to the Gardner case.

- [Laurence] In 1991, about a year

after the Gardner Heist,

Robert Donati disappears.

- Robert Donati was found in the trunk of his car.

His throat was slashed so deeply,

he was almost decapitated.

- There was a gang war going on.

Was he assassinated because of the gang war

or was he assassinated because he knew something

about the Gardner Museum

and he had the art in his possession?

- It's silly to think that beyond a robbery,

that this could now also be tied to a murder.

- [Laurence] After the hit on Donati,

the FBI scours any properties attached to him,

but never finds any of the Gardner works.

- He could have put those paintings anywhere.

I mean, these guys had safe houses all over the place

and perhaps the knowledge

of where he put them died with him.

- Donati may very well have stashed some of those paintings.

And if what he said was true,

then the location of those paintings died with him.

Now, there've been rumors of a painting showing up here

and a painting showing up there,

but every time law enforcement tries

to follow up on those leads, they come up with nothing.

- [Laurence] But Donati's death doesn't stop the FBI

from investigating more Boston crime family members.

The trail leads next to a friend

of Donati named Bobby Gentile.

- Bobby Gentile was friends

with a lot of different Boston area mobsters.

He knew Bobby Donati.

He knew a lot of these characters.

And it's believed that at some point,

he took possession of at least two of these paintings.

So a federal judge authorizes a search warrant

for Bobby Gentile's home.

And inside Gentile's house is a list of all the items

that have been stolen from the Gardner Museum

with little price points on them.

And next to the price points is the Boston Herald article

from the day after the theft.

So after Gentile's house is raided,

he of course, remains a suspect.

- The investigation on Gentile remained open

for three years.

He ultimately sold a gun to an undercover FBI agent.

He received a five-year sentence

for a felony possession of a firearm.

The FBI tried to flip him,

tried to get him to come in and talk about the paintings

that he supposedly had,

but he never would speak about it.

Robert Gentile never admitted anything

to do with the Gardner Heist.

He did his time, got out of jail in 2019

and died in 2021 at the age of 85.

- [Laurence] In 2013, while Gentile is still alive,

tips from the FBI informants point investigators

to other members of organized crime,

a pair of low level gangsters named George Reissfelder

and Leonard Dimuzio.

- Both Reissfelder and Dimuzio appear similar

to the early sketches of the two police officers,

and they also have long rap sheets of theft

and other sorts of violent crime in the Boston area.

- The FBI did background investigations.

And they were successful in getting some of the relatives

of Reissfelder to talk to them.

- During the background investigation

of George Reissfelder,

they sit down with his brother Richard.

They show him a picture book,

and he immediately pointed to the "Chez Tortoni"

and he said, "Hey, I've seen that.

It was in my brother's apartment."

- So in addition to Reissfelder being mobbed up,

as they say, he was also linked to the robbery

or the possession of one of the paintings.

- [Laurence] But soon, the investigation

hits a familiar snag.

- Reissfelder meets an untimely death.

He dies of a cocaine overdose.

Investigators go to his home, they look for the painting.

They find nothing.

- Shortly after George Reissfelder died,

his longtime criminal partner,

Leonard Dimuzio, he disappeared.

And then a few months later,

he was found dead as well.

- [Laurence] Four possible suspects all turning up dead,

just as investigators close in.

To some, it seems like more than a coincidence.

- There were many mafia members who were associated,

involved around the Gardner Heist,

and it would be in their best interest

to not speak on that criminality.

Bad things could happen

if they shared information that they know.

- The silence wasn't necessarily surprising.

That's a part of mob culture.

But if we speculate about where the paintings could be,

they could be anywhere.

They could be buried in the ground,

they could be in a storage unit.

They could be in somebody's house

or on a boat somewhere.

We never know.

- [Laurence] Much of the Gardner Heist investigation has

focused on the thieves who stole the artwork

from the building.

But where did the paintings go next?

And who would have the power and the money to buy them?

- There's a few things that really bother investigators

and myself about this case.

The paintings that were taken

and all of the artwork that were taken are so famous

that they could never be sold.

- You can't just walk into an auction house hopefully

and put up one of these works for auction.

- It's hotter than hot, it's white hot.

It's so famous, it's so valuable,

and it's so reported on.

I mean, this was a story

that made headlines across the globe.

- Generally, artwork is recovered

when there's a death and someone contacts authorities

to say that they found something,

or it's recovered in the midst of another investigation.

- [Laurence] In 2017,

the Gardner Museum doubles its reward,

but no new leads emerge.

- Despite the fact that it's a $10 million reward,

no one has come forth with any information

that has led to the recovery of any of the works.

It's pretty puzzling to think about

why the works that were stolen were actually taken

and more expensive works were left behind.

- The thieves, we know, spent about

81 minutes moving systematically

through both the Dutch room and the Short Room,

removing what some have described as a laundry list

or shopping list of artworks.

- Although some of the paintings

that were taken were masterpieces,

unique pieces that can't be reproduced

or should be recovered,

there were some pieces that were not that valuable.

The Degas sketches were not that valuable.

The Finial off of the flag,

the Napoleonic regimental flag, was valuable,

but not to the point of these paintings.

- So there wasn't a lot of rhyme or reason

for some of the thefts.

The most expensive painting there was Titian.

But the Titian, "The Rape of Europa" is massive.

So you couldn't really walk that out of the museum.

- They avoided Titian's "Rape of Europa,"

but they took Vermeer's "The Concert,"

and some of these smaller works on paper,

suggesting that there was a plan as to what would be taken.

- [Laurence] Investigators begin to shape a new theory.

- The art market itself is full of collectors

whose sole purpose is to acquire works

that they then keep in their own private collections,

which are essentially the private storage

for wealthy collectors.

And we don't have any way to track

what's traded and sold there.

- That person would have to be very wealthy,

tied to the black market,

very well-versed in how the art market functions,

very well-versed in how the museum market functions.

Taken together,

the works really present as a hodgepodge.

But if you consider that the thieves may have been working

from a private collector's shopping list

who had holes in his or her collection to fill,

and you consider the market value of the works together too,

it makes that shopping list theory much more plausible.

- Not only would this require

spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions,

on ordering, smuggling, transportation, and storage,

you also have the idea of, why aren't they just spending

that much money on the legitimate market?

- At the time, Anne Hawley, director of the Garden Museum,

believed that someone had come up with a personal list

of things that they wanted to steal

that really they never had any intention of selling.

This was a list of things

that this person really just wanted to possess

and enjoy for themselves.

- So if someone is collecting

and prizing these works for their own personal viewing,

that requires a lot of storage space

and a lot of secrecy.

- [Laurence] There are some suspects that fit the profile.

- So in 2013,

Pablo Picasso's stepdaughters reported a couple

of pieces missing from their collection.

Turns out, they were sold by a Swiss dealer

to a Russian oligarch.

- Ultimately, a dealer was charged

with handling the stolen goods

and selling them on to the Russian collector

who eventually returned the works to the Picasso family.

- This is one of the most frustrating theories of them all

because it forces us to just wait

to see if someone slips up on the black market

or on the open market.

- Anybody looking to purchase these items has got

to understand that they can't really show them off.

You start talking at your Christmas party

about your Vermeer, the word will get out.

So if anybody wanted to purchase them after the fact,

it had to be somebody who just wanted

to look at them for himself or herself.

And that's why they probably have had

difficulty getting rid of the items.

- [Laurence] The Gardner Museum Heist has always had

an air of sophistication about it,

but there may be even more layers to this crime

than investigators first thought.

- The Gardner Museum investigation

is still an open case,

and even though the statute of limitations has run

on the theft,

the statute of limitations has not run on the possession

of the artwork itself.

Authorities are still trying

to find the stolen items for sure.

They're still interviewing people.

They're still following leads.

They're still using traditional law enforcement techniques.

So it's an ongoing investigation.

- If the paintings are safe, who has them?

Where are they and why?

- [Laurence] The answer may be hiding across the Atlantic.

- There were a lot of Boston Irish individuals

who were sympathetic to the IRA, Irish Republican Army,

which at the time was in deep conflict

with the British Army in Northern Ireland

and was looking for independence.

- The Irish Republican Army, the IRA,

was in fact a violent group fighting

for what they viewed as Irish Freedom and uniting Ireland.

And for many years, they used any tactics necessary,

whether it was bombings or kidnappings or murders.

- And a lot of the criminals

in Boston were funneling money, arms,

anything they could to try to help the cause.

So some individuals thought that it was possible

that the IRA may have been involved

in the theft of the paintings.

- The 13 artworks themselves would be used

to barter in order to gain money and weapons for the IRA efforts.

- [Laurence] The chief proponent of this theory is Arthur Brand,

a Dutch private investigator known

as the Indiana Jones of the art world.

- Renowned art detective Arthur Brand is known

for recovering artworks for governments,

as well as recovering things like a $25 million Picasso

from a yacht.

He believes that the paintings themselves are located

in Ireland, having been taken there

after being smuggled out of the United States

in an effort to raise money for the cause of the IRA.

- [Laurence] The IRA has been linked to art theft before.

- They broke into Sir Alfred Bates home

where they stole 19 works, including a Vermeer.

That Vermeer today is valued by some at around $100 million.

These works they attempted to use to barter

for the freedom of some of their IRA compatriots.

- We're gonna try to ransom them back

to the insurance company or whoever would pay them.

- [Laurence] Authorities foiled the plot

and the paintings were retrieved within weeks.

But there has never been an overt IRA demand

over the Gardner paintings

and that makes investigators doubt Brand's theory.

- There's no indication the IRA ever had these paintings.

They've never come forward to try to get a ransom.

Remember, there's a $10 million reward.

If they were trying to fund something,

they would've gotten the reward.

- Where is the IRA going to be exchanging these works

to get money in arms?

It's most likely not going to be in Ireland,

which means then they're going to have

to smuggle the 13 most well-known works in the world

at the time off an island

onto someplace like mainland Europe

without getting caught a second time.

- [Laurence] Some think the key link was one

of the biggest mob figures in the northeast at the time.

- James Whitey Bulger is the leader

of the Irish gang in Boston in the '80s

and the early '90s.

And he became one of the most powerful,

if not the most powerful criminal in Boston.

They made their money through extortion, drug dealing,

gambling, murder, whatever it took.

- In addition to being a criminal,

Bulger's a long time FBI informant.

So you think if he did know something,

he'd say something.

In Boston, if anybody stole as much as a candy bar,

Bulger's gonna know about it.

So he's a prime candidate

to have information about the Gardner Heist.

- [Laurence] But there was never any evidence connecting Bulger

to the crime itself.

- In 1995, 5 years after the Gardner Heist,

he's charged with the whole slew of crimes

related to racketeering, murder,

extortion, drug dealing,

all sorts of very serious offenses.

And Bulger goes on the run.

And ultimately, he gets caught in the summer of 2011,

16 years after he fled Boston, in Santa Monica, California.

- Whitey Bulger was convicted of several crimes

which included 11 murders.

He was given ultimately two life sentences

and charged with racketeering.

- Not only was he a very savvy criminal,

but he was getting tipped off by corrupt members

of the FBI.

So when he went into prison,

that of course, made him a target.

- During his time in prison,

Bulger began to fear for his life.

- [Laurence] If Bulger was willing to exchange

information about the Gardner Heist

to ensure his safety, he never had the chance.

In 2018, without a deal in place,

Bulger is murdered in prison.

- Some believe that they know

what Bulger may have revealed to the FBI.

Given that it's known

he shipped arms and drugs to the IRA.

- Now that Bulger has been beaten to death in prison,

there's no way to confirm anything from him.

But up until the day he died,

he never gave any indication

that he knew where Gardner Museum's artwork was.

- [Laurence] Investigators like Arthur Brand

are still scouring Europe for any sign of the paintings,

but so far, nothing's turned up.

- This artwork belongs in Boston.

Hopefully someday, they'll be back

hanging in the Gardner Museum for all of us to see.

- There's always gonna be a reminder of this heist,

even after 33 years,

because of the will Isabella Stewart Gardner

left when she died.

It states that nothing can be changed,

nothing can be moved in the museum.

So if you go today,

you're gonna see empty frames where the paintings were.

- We won't become a world class city

until we get our artwork back.

You can see those empty frames, they're heartbreaking.

You walk into the Dutch Room now,

it's like walking the first person at a wake,

sadness, loss.

And that's a loss for Boston.

- More than three decades have passed

since 13 works of art were stolen

from the Gardner Museum in Boston.

So far, not a single one has surfaced,

denying the art world some of its greatest treasures.

But with that $10 million reward still out there,

hope remains that these masterpieces

will come home soon.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching "History's Greatest Mysteries."