What does Whitey Bulger know about the 1990 Gardner Museum art heist? 2011/06/29 at 11:59 am
This post has been corrected. Please see note at bottom for details.
In 1990, two men dressed as police officers broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole a Vermeer, five Degas and three Rembrandts.
The masterpieces and four other paintings stolen that day are estimated to be worth more than $500 million.
Two decades later, the case remains stubbornly unsolved. It has been called “the holy grail of art crime.”
But with the arrest in Santa Monica Wednesday of notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, many in the art world are now asking: Could it provide a break in the greatest art heist in American history?
Rumors have long swirled that Bulger, the head of the city’s powerful Irish American mob at the time, may have played a role — or must have known who did.