What is the way of thieves who steal artwork worth over 50 billion yen from the museum in 81 minutes?

In the midnight on 18th March 1990, a pair of men entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stealed 13 pieces of artwork that had been exhibited. The value of artwork stolen in the mere 81 minutes of crime is said to be over 500 million dollars (about 55 billion yen) or more, even though 28 years have passed since the incident the criminal was not caught and art works The missing position is also unknown. A movie that describes such a history of art robbery remains in YouTube.

How 2 Guys Stole $ 500 Million of Art in 81 Minutes


The robbery incident that occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was a robbery play that rarely caused a huge amount of damage worldwide.

In this robbery, robberies of two people stealed more than 50 billion yen of artworks in only 81 minutes. And even if nearly 30 years have passed since the incident occurred, the criminal was not arrested and the artistic merchandises were unknown and remain unresolved.

How did the two people succeed in robbery?

Around 1 o'clock midnight on March 18, 1990, one car stopped near Yokonemon at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

There were two men wearing police uniforms in the car and two had been waiting in the car for nearly an hour after stopping the car near the museum.

At that time, there were two guards in the museum ... ...

One of them was a male security guard named Mr. Richard Abbas. Mr. Abbas admitted later that he had worked in a drunk state while guarding late at night, but he asserts that "the night the burglar broke out, it was a slide."

At 1:24 am, two men in uniforms in police insisted that they entered the entrance as they got in touch with the report and entered the entrance door, Mr. Abbas at the front desk to two We corresponded.

According to the rules of the museum, inviting unscheduled visitors in the middle of the night was forbidden, but Mr. Abbas did not know whether the rule would apply to the police. Also, on the day of the incident, it was late at " St. Patrick 's Day " that is celebrated globally with Boston with many Irish immigrants, and several parties were held in the vicinity of the museum. The two allegations that "There was an emergency call" at such a noisy late night are plausible, and Mr. Abbas has put them in the museum without questioning the words.

And without difficulty the two invaded the museum. After the two talked to Mr. Abbas ......

He told Abbas that he had a warrant, took him to a place away from the desk with the emergency report button, confirmed his identity card, and detained Abbas with handcuffs.

At that time, another security guy came to Mr. Abbas and others.

The two detained another guard, but the two guards seemed to have not swallowed the situation well at this time. "Why are they being arrested?" It is said that they asked two people in police uniforms.

Finally, the two men told them that they were robbers, confined the security guards with duct tape and confined them to the cellar.

Two freedom robbers explored the inside of the museum and removed the exhibited art piece from the wall and carried it out. Before removing art objects, they said that they had the knowledge of theft, such as turning off the alarm so that the alarm does not sound.

Since motion detectors were set up in the museum, almost all the movements of the two people were tracked.

However, the motion detector seemed to be a system in which suspicious movements were detected and conveyed to security guards inside the museum, where security guards pressed emergency report buttons to call external police.

As a result, the guards who were completely ineffective at this time could not call the police, and the two thieves could steal the artworks at once.

After all, the two thieves had three pieces of artwork including 3 Rembrandt 's paintings, 5 Dega 's paintings, 1 Vermeer 's paintings, ancient Chinese cups, hawk sculptures on the tip of Napoleon 's banner flag, etc. , I ran into the car in two cars and escaped.

Among them, Vermeer's " ensemble " is said to be worth over 200 million dollars (about 22 billion yen) and it is said that the highest price among the paintings stolen by thieves.

After all, the two thieves steal artwork worth over 55 billion yen, and the way of artworks remains unknown at the time of article creation.

The police grasped the case at 8:30 am the next day, so the American police also paid much attention to the investigation of the robbery theater rarely seen in this history.

In the process of investigation, several strange facts were revealed. One of them is the fact that Mr. Abbas of the guard opened the Yokomon for just a moment and closed shortly thereafter about thirty minutes before a two - man man came in from the door.

A man of two people had stopped the car around Yokomon, but Mr. Abbas insisted that "I just checked whether it is locked properly".

Also, only in the area of ​​the first floor where art objects were stolen, motion detectors that detect robbery motion did not work. Mr. Abbas had dropped in this place before the robbery entered the museum.

In addition, despite the fact that the robbery did not wear a mask, Mr. Abbas says "I do not remember anything about the two people."

In addition, in the image of the surveillance camera recorded in the night before the robbery in 2015, the scene where Mr. Abbas was talking with a mysterious person in the vicinity of Yokomon was recorded. Mr. Abbas told "I do not remember" at that time, the identity of the mysterious person remains unknown.

Also, there are mysteries remaining in the choice of art that robber steals.

In the Isabella · Stewart · Gardner Museum, Rafaelo and Botticelli were exhibiting valuable paintings than paintings stolen in this case. However, robberies did not put their hands, even though these paintings were in a very easy place to steal.

From this point, there is also the theory that "The criminal was not familiar with art in detail".

Although some evidence and suspicious points have been found, the direct clue of the criminal has not been obtained so far. The museum hopes that artwork will come back, and it is said that the person who provided the clue leading to the criminal will give a reward of 10 million dollars (about 1.1 billion yen).

After the robbery, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum seemed to strengthen security, but it has already become delayed.