The notorious 1990 art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston has generated countless theories over the past three decades.
Now, a former FBI agent has addressed those theories — ranging from the Corsican mob to the Irish Republican Army — in a new book, as well as revealing what he believes really happened.
The saga began on March 18, 1990, when two men posing as police officers showed up at the Boston museum and claimed they received reports of a disturbance, according to the FBI.
Once they were let inside, the men tied up the museum’s security guards in the basement. They then stole 13 artworks, worth more than $500 million at the time, in the “largest property crime in U.S. history,” the agency said.
The list includes works by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet and Rembrandt van Rijn, along with a painting by Johannes Vermeer, which is one of only 34 surviving works by the Dutch Master. The museum now displays empty frames where the works once were.
“It's an intentional choice designed to send a message to the public—a reminder of what was lost and hope that what was once there will someday return,” the agency said.
The Boston museum is offering up to $10 million to anyone who “returns the art in good condition,” according to the FBI.
Geoffrey Kelly, a retired FBI agent who investigated the theft for more than two decades, detailed the case in his new book, Thirteen Perfect Fugitives, and described how investigators tried to determine who was behind the brazen heist.
According to a New York Times review of Kelly’s book, he dismissed several theories, one of which involved the Corsican mob. Kelly reportedly wrote that this theory was a dead end, after an investigation revealed the group did have access to stolen works, but none were related to the case.
Another theory involved the Irish Republican Army and James Bulger, a late Boston gang leader who once had ties to the group. Kelly threw cold water on the idea that Bulger or the IRA were responsible, the paper reports.
Kelly also addressed a slew of other questions, including whether the artworks could’ve been hidden in the museum all along, a possibility which he also debunked.
Investigators’ current theory centers on a group of Boston mobsters associated with Carmello Merlino, who denied having the art but once told the FBI he might know who did. Merlino died in 2005.
Investigators have previously said they believe two of Merlino’s associates, Leonard DiMuzio and George Reissfelder, likely carried out the heist. Both men died shortly after the works were stolen.
The two men resembled the police sketch of the thieves, and Reissfelder’s brother has said he saw one of the stolen works at his brother’s apartment, Kelly reportedly wrote.
The FBI has also looked into Robert Gentile, a well-known mobster who died in 2021. Another mobster’s widow once told investigators that her husband gave Gentile two of the stolen works, according to the Associated Press.
Gentile repeatedly denied any allegations that he was linked to the stolen artworks.
“I had nothing to do with the paintings. It’s a big joke,” he told the AP in 2019.
