Ep 53 The Gardner Museum Heist

TRUE

Imperative Entertainment

True Crime, History, Society & Culture

4.5 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When two police officers arrived at the side entrance of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the early hours of March 18th, 1990, the night guard buzzed them in. They said they were responding to a disturbance call and had a few questions. Before he had time to react, the officers had him in handcuffs. Just over an hour later, the two men dressed in police uniforms exited the side door, loaded their car, and drove off with over half a billion dollars in artwork. Over 30 years later, the stolen items have never been found and no one has ever been charged. To this day, it’s the most valuable property theft of all time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is intended for mature audiences.
0:03.7	Listener discretion is advised. The museum and gift shop will be closing in five minutes.
0:28.6	Thank you. We hope to see you again. It was around 3 a.m. on April 14th, 1991, when a man quietly emerged from one of the bathrooms inside the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
0:56.4	He'd been there since the front doors were locked hours earlier.
1:00.6	As he entered the main hall and headed toward the security station, he pulled a ski mask over his head and removed the pistol from its holster.
1:08.0	With the element of surprise on his side, he was able to quickly disarm the two
1:12.2	guards that were on duty. Locking one of them in a storage closet, he forced the other to disarm
1:17.8	the security system and unlock the front doors. An accomplice was waiting outside and immediately
1:23.9	entered the building. Over the next 45 minutes, the pair collected 20 of Van Gogh's most famous works of art,
1:31.2	stuffing them all into a couple of foldable garment bags.
1:35.2	Using one of the security guards vehicles, the robbers threw the bags in the back and took off.
1:41.4	The plan was to rendezvous with another car at the train station, but when the other car got a flat tire and failed to show up, the thieves panicked and took off on foot.
1:51.6	At just before 6 a.m., three hours after the heist began, authorities located the getaway car at the train station.
1:59.1	They couldn't believe it when they also located the two
2:01.5	garment bags inside, still containing the 20 paintings valued in the hundreds of millions.
2:08.1	It didn't take long before investigators arrested four Dutch nationals, including one of the
2:13.2	security guards. If it had been successful, the 1991 Van Gogh Museum art heist would have gone down as one of the largest in modern history.
2:23.4	Instead, it's remembered as one of the most short-lived attempts on record.
2:28.8	In December 2002, the museum was robbed again. This time, thieves climbed up to the roof and used a sledgehammer
2:36.8	to gain access. Within minutes, they had stolen two Van Gogh paintings, estimated to be worth
2:42.7	around $100 million combined. Fourteen years later, in 2016, Italian police discovered the artwork during a raid on a mafia clan in Naples.
2:54.7	It may have taken a while, but the paintings were finally returned, hopefully under better security this time.
	...

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