Gardner Museum Heist: 27th Anniversary Story: The True Story; Not the FBI’s One: 2/8

Gardner MuseumUsing informants means that you don’t have to do the hard work involved in truly investigating matters. You just have to make a call or a meet and act like a stenographer writing down what the informant said. Live by the informant, die by the informant. 27 years later the FBI is still without a clue as to whom pulled the job. You would think it would realize it has been had.

From the beginning when I read about the case I concluded it was a well planned robbery by well paid skillful art thieves who knew what they wanted, were hired to do the job, and had a fence or customer waiting to take the art work from them. The package I received suggests something along the line I figured out but goes deeper into it by identifying the people who did it.

It should have been so easy for the FBI to figure this out. The first thing the FBI should have recognized was that this was a well planned robbery. It was done by people who had specific art works in mind. Specific items were taken from two different floors and three different rooms. That meant someone went in there with a plan as to what to take. To do this the thieves would have had to case the Museum on several occasions prior to the theft.

Had the FBI recognized that it would not have beat the informant bush looking for someone to rat someone else out. It would have gone through all the retained video tape recordings, if any, of people who visited the museum. It would also have reached out to foreign police agencies, gone through the international flight passenger lists of each airline as well as the records of each hotel and motel in the Boston vicinity looking for people who visited Boston from overseas.

That is a lot of hard work. That is why the FBI did not do it. It is easier to rely on informants.

If it started with the idea that this was a pre-cased robbery and the thieves knew what they wanted, it would have also concluded that the thieves were professional art thieves who had been hired by a corrupt art dealer (fence) who already had customers waiting for the art work. It would also have recognized that the type of theft committed was one common to Europe and not to America. (That is my theory. The package claims otherwise.) It would have secured help from the international community. None of that seems to have been done.

To understand this more it is necessary to review some of the actions and statements of the FBI. Four years ago this March 17th the FBI SAC in Boston said the FBI “had identified the thieves” without naming them. 

At the same time the FBI agent in charge of the investigation Geoffrey Kelly said because one painting was sliced out of the frame that’s indicative of a rank amateur when it comes to art theft.”  He went on to say the FBI’s working profile points to inexperienced art thieves” although  in his description of how they worked that night (taking the surveillance tape and a print out of the motion detector) seems to point to professionals.

What was so astonishing is the FBI was issuing statements that contradicted themselves. If the FBI knew who the thieves were, as the FBI SAC stated, it would not be working with a “working profile.” It knows them. It would  know whether or not they were amateurs.

When I juxtaposed these statements it was clear to me the FBI had no idea who the thieves were. It was a con. It was putting this disinformation out hoping to shake the bushes so that somehow, someone, somewhere even as far away as Finland, might give it some information. (You might remember a short time earlier the FBI used this approach to get information that led to the capture of Whitey Bulger.)

 

9 Comments

  1. The FBI helped the GARDNER DIRECTOR AND FORMER HARVARD GARDNER DIRECTOR PLACE FORGED ART on the walls prior to the heist AND then stage the fake art and arrange the real art to be sold off FOR JOHN GARDNER who with the museum was broke. FBI Covers for elite Rich guy and they let the former Harvard live in Director sell the REAL art in Venice under his Save Venice restoration projects and tours raising hundreds of millions.

    Proof both the Gardner and Harvard museums are now filthy rich and have new additions worth a hundred million. Harvard had to agree to the art sale and theft because Harvard could force the will clause that says any moved art would force a wholesale selloff with Harvard U being sole recipient of that sale. They split the sale while installing a spy on watching the sale and any other monies the Gardner raised from the art sales as it was fenced…A FOR LIFE Board Member of the Gardner is HARVARD’S WATCHMAN.

  2. FBI informant / Serial Killer Tony Frankos
    describes in his book how he was in jail
    and released to whack Jimmy Hoffa
    He then returned to jail to continue
    serving his sentence.

  3. Matt…sent you an email …Fitz

  4. Wa-llahi! A wish come true! Preet Bharara is available for Special Prosecutor. Hamdullilahi! Thank you, Glorious Leader.

  5. I am still going with Myles Connor.
    He has the skill set, ego, testicular development.,
    and an addiction to adrenaline.
    Did I mention a Vermeer jones?

    in other news…

    Ed Tatro recently recommend the book
    Mr New Orleans by Frenchy Brouillette

    Amazing Amazing book as I am about 1/3 rd
    into reading it

    Outstanding evidence for J Edgar Hoover
    assassinating President Kennedy.
    The book is recently published.
    The author was stabbed to death
    just after the book came out.

    • Myles was in jail but that doesn’t exclude him from the list. Many crimes have been committed from behind bars.

  6. It’s an open and shut case in so many ways:

    A. The case is still “open” and therefore, it’s “shut.” (Translation: It’s an open investigation so when we want your questions, we’ll give them to you.)

    B. The where-are-the-paintings? part is open but the who-did-it? part is shut.
    OK, well then can you make the motion sensor readouts from say 3-16-90 to 3-18-90 public? Answer: See A.

    C. Anything is possible and it is possible, they knew who at least two of the perpetrators were within a hundred hours but didn’t put the pressure on them the way that they might have under more ordinary circumstances for reasons that have been outlined with other criminals and other crimes right here at Matt’s blog, “Trekking Toward The Truth,” with a regularity that is the blog’s signature.

    Ref;

    https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/03/16/fbi-should-open-files-gardner-heist/Zi1QvPDNIlOfjchuidB1JO/story.html

    https://twitter.com/gardnerheist/status/831870623882366976

  7. I think priceless painting would make wonderful hostages.