Less than a year before some statutes of limitations could run out on the most valuable art theft in American history, Daniel Falzon thought that the "Dr. No" long imagined to have engineered the crime had finally surfaced.
Two transplanted Bostonians had been invited last April to tour a private art gallery in Japan owned by a wealthy artist with organized crime ties. As the collector showed them around, the visitors were shocked to see mounted on the ceiling what appeared to be "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" by Rembrandt -- one of the masterpieces stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum the morning after St. Patrick's Day, 1990.
Falzon, the FBI agent assigned to the case, believed there was no existing copy of the Rembrandt seascape. After months of negotiating with Japanese officials, he and Barbara Mangum, the Gardner's chief conservator, flew to Japan. Joined by Japanese police officers and Fred Coward, an FBI assistant legal attache, they entered the mansion with a search warrant. But their hopes ebbed as soon as they gazed up at the ceiling. Even to Falzon's amateur eyes, the painting was an obvious copy.
Almost five years after the $300 million theft, the FBI has received 2,000 tips, chased down leads that pointed everywhere from South American drug cartels to the Irish Republican Army, administered dozens of lie detector tests, and even gathered 40 international experts for an art theft symposium at FBI training headquarters in Virginia. But, with statutes of limitations about to expire on the biggest American property crime of the 20th century, FBI agents say they're not close to making any arrests.
The bureau has circulated unidentified fingerprints from the crime scene worldwide by computer, and continues to hope for a match. "We will investigate forever," said Brien O'Connor, the assistant US attorney on the case. "The rule we're operating under is: No expense is too great for this case."
Authorities may be running out of time. There is a five-year statute of limitations on interstate transport of stolen property -- the charge that the federal government would prefer to use against the robbers -- and on receiving stolen property across state lines. Each time that stolen property is knowingly transported or received again, though, the clock restarts.
Lessons learned
Inspired by the Gardner case, the crime bill passed by Congress this year established art theft from a museum as a federal felony, with a 20-year statute of limitations. But the law does not apply to prior crimes.
If the 11 missing paintings turn up in a foreign country, it may require consummate diplomacy to retrieve them. Before Japanese authorities would execute a search warrant on the collector's mansion, for example, Gardner officials and the US Justice Department had to agree that ownership of the paintings would be determined in a Japanese court.
At the Gardner, the wall spaces where the stolen paintings hung remain empty, testifying to the loss. While Isabella Gardner's will prohibits adding to her treasures, museum trustees could have asked Suffolk County Probate Court to amend it, as they have done on other matters. But, since the paintings were uninsured for theft, the museum could not afford any works of remotely comparable worth.
To protect against future theft, Gardner trustees have beefed up security equipment and personnel, established a security committee, and insured the collection for theft. Both museum attendance and fund-raising are on the increase.
"In some ways, the theft helped the museum," said director Anne Hawley. "It brought out sympathy and support worldwide, and made people in Boston realize how significant this collection really is."
When she was hired in 1989, Hawley recognized security as an issue needing attention. The museum's defenses had not kept pace with the rise in art prices since 1892, when Isabella Gardner bought Vermeer's "The Concert" for $6,000.
Although the museum had a perimeter security system for windows and doors, works of art were not protected by individual alarms as they often are in other museums, according to private investigators familiar with the case. Low-paid security guards, often college students, talked openly over radios, even though the Gardner's frequencies were publicly available.
Few clues left behind
Hawley had not had a chance to improve the system before the rainy Sunday morning of March 18, 1990. At 1:24 a.m., two men rang the museum's doorbell, and told the guard at the watch desk that they were police officers investigating a disturbance. Although it was against protocol, the guard buzzed them in.
The strangers both carried radios and wore uniforms with Boston police patches. One was in his late 20's, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall, with short black hair and gold-framed glasses. The other was in his early 30's, 6 feet tall and broad-shouldered, with what appeared to be a false moustache. The FBI would later comb flea markets and costume shops in failed efforts to trace the uniforms.
Description of thieves from the New York Times, the previous day:
"Investigators were not devoid of clues. The two guards, while badly shaken, were able to provide some description of the robbers. One was said to be in his late 20's to early 30's, 5 feet 7 to 5 feet 10, with short-cropped black hair, a narrow face, squarish gold-rimmed eyeglasses, a shiny dark mustache, apparently fake, and a "possible Boston accent." The other was said to be in his early to mid-30's, about 6 feet tall or 6 foot 1, 180 to 200 pounds, with puffy black hair and also an apparently fake black mustache. The uniforms and shields may also have been bogus."
Quickly, the robbers shoved the guards against a wall and bound them with stainless steel handcuffs. Then they led the guards downstairs to the basement, where one was handcuffed to a pipe and the other to a basin, about 50 yards apart. Their hands and feet were bound, and their eyes were covered with duct tape.
Additional clues: from the previous days, 12/15/94, New York Times:
Both robbers carried on their belts square black radios, one of which crackled with barely intelligible voices reciting police-type code numbers, suggesting the presence of lookouts, a getaway crew and transfer vehicles.
Two months before, in fact, there appeared to have been similar attempts at night to gain entry to the Gardner and the Museum of Fine Arts, although Mr. Falzon said they could not be definitely linked to the robbery.
There were other clues not previously reported. Before the robbery, the pair were observed by several people leaving a party across the street, although the witness accounts were fragmentary at best.
Although the two men had no strong accents, one man called the other "mate," perhaps a nautical or Australian expression. Furthermore, the guards were told, "Tell them they'll be hearing from us," a possible allusion to a ransom demand, which never arrived.
Back to the Boston Globe articleNow the Gardner's treasures were at the thieves' mercy -- and they showed none. They smashed the glass covering the Vermeer, and cut two masterpieces by Rembrandt, including the seascape, out of their frames. They rolled up the stiff Rembrandt canvases, scattering paint chips on the floor. "If we are able to recover them, we don't know what condition they'll be in," Falzon said.
They removed a third Rembrandt, a self-portrait in oils. But when they realized that it was painted on a wood panel and could not be cut, they left it on the floor, taking a smaller etched self-portrait instead. According to Hawley, that same etching had been stolen twice before. Once it had been returned, and once it was found on the MBTA.
Periodically, the thieves returned to the basement to check on the guards. "Can you breathe, mate?" one robber asked, his vocabulary suggesting British or nautical connections that the FBI has sought in vain to confirm.
Before leaving at 2:45 a.m., the thieves destroyed the videotape in the security camera, and sent a message to museum officials via the guards. "Tell them they'll be hearing from us," one thief said.
Because the comment implied a possible ransom demand, the FBI would later theorize that South American cartels had stolen the paintings to trade for the release of drug dealers from prison. But no such barter was ever offered.
Investigating leads
Within hours after the crime was discovered by security personnel, museum trustee Arnold Hiatt persuaded Christie's and Sotheby's to lead a consortium posting a $1 million reward.
At the FBI, Falzon was appointed case agent because he had gathered evidence against Myles Connor Jr., the former rock musician who had been convicted of art theft in November 1989. Connor, who was behind bars at the time of the Gardner theft, later offered to help with the Gardner investigation in return for a reduced sentence, but no deal was struck.
Falzon and other FBI agents questioned current and former museum employees -- and even caterers who held functions at the Gardner. One former security guard, who drew attention because he had not picked up his last paycheck, failed a polygraph test. But, after moving to Europe, he was retested in Paris by FBI agents, and passed.
According to several sources, the FBI remains interested in Brian McDevitt, who served time for a 1981 attempted robbery at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, N.Y., that had several similarities to the Gardner heist, including the use of handcuffs and duct tape.
This past summer, McDevitt rejected an FBI request for an interview. McDevitt, who had previously been interviewed twice by the bureau and had also testified before a grand jury, felt he had answered all relevant questions and that it was time to put the case behind him, according to his attorney, Thomas Beatrice. McDevitt, who now lives in California, declined comment through his attorney.
The FBI recently contacted Irish authorities about a possible link between the Gardner theft and the 1986 robbery of 18 paintings, including a Vermeer, from the country estate of Sir Alfred Beit. Fifteen of the Beit paintings have been recovered in England, Belgium and Turkey. However, an Irish police spokesman said in an interview that Dublin criminals with no known American ties pulled off the Beit heist.
Speculation about an IRA link to the Gardner theft remains unconfirmed. Joseph Murray, who attempted to smuggle arms to the IRA aboard the trawler Valhalla in 1984, told private investigators that he had information about a major art theft, although he did not specify the Gardner. Murray was shot to death by his wife in 1992.
Late in 1991, the Gardner trustees hired Terry Lenzner, head of The Investigative Group in Washington, D.C., to supplement the FBI's efforts. Lenzner focused on a Boston man who had been observed playing a videotape of the Gardner galleries on his television set. The trail led to Sicily, where Lenzner's firm conducted surveillance on a wedding, but nothing came of it.
Despite the lack of progress, Falzon remains as tenacious and obsessed as Hercule Poirot. "Four years, compared to other art thefts, isn't long," he said. "But it's been long for me. It's been my life."
Copyright Boston Globe Newspaper
