The Biggest Art Robbery in History
Posted - 16 February 2012 by Escape Currency
In at Number 2 - The Boston Gardner Museum Heist - a mere $300m!
This robbery is also considered as the biggest Art robbery in history. On March 18th 1990, at the Gardner Museum in Boston, two men dressed as police officers convinced 2 inexperienced security guards at the Museum that they were responding to a disturbance. Contrary to museum policy, the 2 guards let the “officers” into the premises, where they quickly learned that they had been duped after being handcuffed by the men in the basement.
Amazingly, the 2 men managed to do this despite having no visible weapons whatsoever. The men spent the next 81 minutes calmly selecting 12 pieces of art with a combined value of over $300 million, and this was 20 years ago.
Three Rembrandts and a Vermeer - among others.Among the paintings stolen were 3 Rembrandt’s and a Vermeer, but all very nearly went very wrong for the men. As they struggled to remove a heavy-framed Rembrandt from the silk-draped wall of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the two thieves abruptly stopped as a high-pitched alarm beeped from the baseboard.
A close shaveThey must have been startled, but not for long. Intended to alert guards when museum visitors ventured too close to the art, the alarm was quickly hunted down by the men. They smashed it silent and went back to work.
The two then took the surveillance tapes and departed, never to be heard from again, though in 1994 an offer was made to return the paintings for $2.6 million and immunity from prosecution, but the writer was never heard from again.
Amateurs? MaybeThe men appear to possibly be amateurs, as they made no effort to avoid damaging the paintings and left even more valuable works behind.
The case has never been solved and there is a $5 million reward for any information pertaining to the return of the artworks. Also, authorities have announced that they will not prosecute anyone who has the paintings and offers to return them.
A recent reexamination of the case, including the first interview with the guard who let the thieves in, uncovers several of those secrets and allows the clearest account yet of what happened on the night of the theft.
Sleeping on the job?An account that underscores how defenseless the Gardner Museum was, with its easily foiled security system and two inexperienced guards on duty, one of whom admits he was sometimes stoned while on the job!!
Tags: robbery,comma,heist,money,art,theft,stoned
This entry was posted in History.
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