The Daily Beast
Netflix’s ‘This Is a Robbery’ investigates whether the mob has drawn the biggest art heist in the world
Netflix On March 18, 1990, two men posing as Boston police officers entered the famous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and left after 13 minutes with 13 artworks – including Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and Vermeer The Concert – valued by the FBI at about $ 500 million. In the 31 years since that St. Patrick’s Day robbery, no pieces have been recovered, and none of the individuals responsible for the theft have been definitively identified or executed. It was one of the crimes of the century, and it still confuses the authorities and journalists. So far, as suggested by This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist, perhaps the biggest mystery is not that the crooks were initially not getting away with their loot, but that no one has been peeping since – despite museum continues to offer a $ 10 million reward for information that led to the restoration of the art. He Killed Himself – and then stabbed to death Director Colin Barnicle’s four – a portion of Netflix documentaries (which premieres on April 7) watch this infamous heist, which began in the early morning hours of March 18 , when Rick Abath, security guard of the museum, allowed two uniformed strangers into the facility. There, the fopmen tied Abath and his colleague with adhesive tape in the basement, and then took the best time to snatch a strange collection of works from different rooms, as well as grab the VHS security camera straps from the building. There was no clear rhyme or reason behind the objects they targeted, but the thorough thoroughness of their activities, as well as their familiarity with the museum – including the location of the door of a secret room – indicated that they possibly benefited from inside knowledge or help. The suspicion first falls on Abath, who earlier opened the museum door to the street minutes before the disguised thieves arrive there. It’s a robbery spending a lot of energy to think of Abath, an intoxicating deceiver about the day who does not really like his job or his bosses, and who let someone in the evening in front of the museum – a clear violation of security protocols. heist. Abath does not take part in the series, but Barnicle does include excerpts from a CNN interview with him, as well as an audio recording of his conversation with former Boston Globe investigative journalist (and Spotlight team member) Stephen Kurkjian, during which he denies involvement at the crime. It is a robbery with a driving force that does not interfere with the comprehensive investigation into the many corners of the story. Using a variety of graphic timelines and maps, photos and archival news and crime scene videos, it is clearly laid out about the multiple threads that the story contains. Interviews with researchers and local journalists help convey the atmosphere of this Boston era, while a sense of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum comes thanks to long nightly journeys through its inviting, ornate corridors. There is nothing groundbreaking about Barnicle’s chosen form, and his dramatic recreations (shot melodramatically, with actor faces always obscured) are an unnecessary annoyance. Thanks to the sharp carving by a team of four editors, the series moves smoothly back and forth in time, and between venues and personalities, to give a coherent account of the intricate saga. Although Abath was a promising initial suspect, attention soon turned to Myles Connor, a notorious art thief in New England who was just as waffling as he was talented. The only problem was that Connor had an airtight alibi: he was behind bars for a previous offense when the robbery took place. Nevertheless, it’s a robbery, thanks to contemporary interviews with Connor and others, suspects that Connor may have had a hand in the burglary through his association with Bobby Donati, an Italian mafioso with whom he previously collaborated to run an art robbery. do. work. Donati therefore had experience with such conspiracies, and on top of that he had a motive – namely to get his underworld friend Vincent Ferrara out of jail. It is there that This is a Robbery first plunges into a tangle of Italian mob connections and conspiracies, resulting in a compelling theory that Donati and his closest confidant Bobby Guarente devised the plan, which was then carried out by a group gangsters – led by Carmello Merlino, including Charlie Pappas, David Turner, George Reissfelder and Leonard Dimuzio – who performed from Merlino’s TRC Auto Electric store in Dorchester. By analyzing the location and history of these characters, as well as anecdotes from their family members, Barnicle’s documentation comes with a reasonable hypothesis about who pulled the robbery. It also follows that the art in the wake of the crime was passed on by Guarente to Hartford, CT gangster Robert Gentile, whose house eventually became the subject of a raid that unfortunately yielded no hard evidence. is the most enlightening in the investigation of the motivations of thieves who put forth priceless works of art. Although sales on the black market are an option, the series shows that such paintings and sculptures can also be used as collateral for drug dealers, and thus function as an illegal pseudo-currency for large transactions. Even more wonderfully, they are often sought after as leverage against future imprisonment. In other words, a thief could theoretically exchange a Rembrandt in their possession for a lighter sentence regarding an unrelated case – a situation involving a free prison card from prison ‘that Connor himself did pioneering work . That Guarente, Merlino and the company did not cough up a painting to free their arrested groups may mean that they actually had nothing to do with the heist in the first place. ask why no one decided to sing and thus raise the $ 10 million reward. The answer may simply be that it is because most of the possible culprits are now dead (due to natural causes, murder or shady circumstances). Or it could be that there’s a bomb, now that David Turner has been released from prison. It is a robbery not a definite answer, but provocative by suggesting that the truth is still there. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. 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