00:04:11.140They don't have this image in their mind of the common criminal who's depriving the public of, you know, the world's great art.
00:04:19.500I think another thing is that sometimes the public views museums, here in the United States especially, because they're not government museums except for a few.
00:04:28.980People view museums as like these bastions of the wealthy and they're only for like, you know, the blue bloods and well-heeled people.
00:04:37.940um but that's not true at all either i mean museum the whole point of a museum is egalitarian
00:04:44.580is to bring these priceless treasures that we could otherwise not have bring them into a place
00:04:50.280where everybody can come see them and enjoy them so and they're most and they're mostly non-profits
00:04:55.100so it's this perception that people have that doesn't match the reality and um you know the
00:05:01.920reality is much uglier and can be violent. And, you know, it's one of my missions to try to get
00:05:09.460that point across to the world. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I do think it's so interesting
00:05:14.200that so many people look at art thieves almost as this like Robin Hood, right? Because they
00:05:20.500consider that the museums are, like you said, only for very wealthy people when the goal of museums
00:05:26.420is to make this art accessible to the world as opposed to mostly being hoarded by rich people
00:05:32.860in climate controlled chambers and then, you know, or sold as collateral in drug deals, which,
00:05:38.580you know, I get it. I get into the fun stuff in the book, too. But yeah, I but I do think that
00:05:45.560there is this kind of aspect of museums being fancy and the thieves are just doing this like
00:05:51.520for the betterment of, of, of the average person. And that's, that's not the case.
00:05:57.440It's so far from the case. You know, I hear that a lot too, the Robin Hood thing, you know,
00:06:02.300steal from the rich and give to the poor. First of all, where's the give to the poor part? When
00:06:07.580people steal masterpieces, they don't give them to anybody. They try to sell them and then find
00:06:13.400they can't. So they hide them and nobody sees them. So the second part of that Robin Hood
00:06:18.620myth isn't factual either so they're not stealing from the rich they're stealing from a non-profit
00:06:25.400and they're giving it to nobody so you know there's nothing in reality that that comports
00:06:32.820with that sort of mythology well and the majority of heists are just so much simpler than we imagine
00:06:41.880them in movies you know i when i think about heists i'm like mission impossible and lasers
00:06:47.980and computers and, you know, doors and gates sliding open and closed.
00:06:55.300And you know that very well because you oversee security at the Gardner Museum, which did
00:07:02.140experience, you know, one of the biggest and most memorable and unsolved heists in history.
00:07:09.600Right. You know, when I watch these movies and of course, you know, Hollywood has to
00:07:12.440take liberties. It would probably wouldn't be so exciting if it didn't.
00:07:16.020But you see all sorts of security mechanisms that you just couldn't do in real life because of fire codes, limitations in buildings, and the cost of the sorts of things you see in movies that just aren't factual.
00:07:30.980In reality, what you try to do is build a lot of layers of security of different quality.
00:07:38.500You know, some layers are very, very dense and some are lesser so, but you try to make the path between the public, the public part of the museum where the thief would enter in the art that you want to put layers between the two and then layers to keep a person from, you know, smashing grabs, pull a painting off the wall and run out.
00:08:00.420you want layers to stop them on their way out too so so that's what reality is like it's not
00:08:06.260you know these steel doors come down in galleries if there was a fire can you can you imagine just
00:08:12.460trapping people in galleries that way like i think thomas crown of fear had something like that
00:08:17.720but it's it's it's far different and uh you i can tell you rather than your research because it's
00:08:24.060it's uh you've really got things down how did how how does my how does my heist end up stacking up
00:08:29.740did I do an okay job? Yeah, because you focus it in reality. But, you know, I'm enjoying the book
00:08:36.460because of just, you know, I'm like Van Gogh or Van Gogh or Van Gogh. You know, we're saying
00:08:44.240Van Gogh in the audiobook because I think that Van Gogh will sound confusing to people and I
00:08:48.860don't want to do anything to take someone out of the story. No, that'll mess up people. You're
00:08:52.900right and um but when you read it you know to the eye it looks like joe van gogh but as you point
00:09:00.620out in the book it's actually joe and it's more like in in in the netherlands would be joe van
00:09:06.080gogh so it wouldn't it wouldn't be a rhyming name um but i just like that history part you know
00:09:12.560everyone knows if you if you ask anybody on the street about van gogh they're going to mention
00:09:17.400that he cut his ear but everyone knows that story but as far again the reality is far more
00:09:25.040interesting with you know with him dying and then his his loving brother teo dying and and his
00:09:30.740widow uh taking over this collection of art that turns out to be you know 100 years later the most
00:09:39.560valuable art on the planet and it's just um it's just a really interesting story well i'm so glad
00:09:46.580that you think so as someone I mean you spend your days surrounded by these wonderful masterpieces
00:09:53.460and you love art uh you know the way that I do the way that so many of my readers do I do love
00:09:59.740hearing the story of how artists not just became famous but how they became people that we know
00:10:06.560right like how how how do their how do their names survive and so when I found when I found
00:10:13.960Joe's story when one of my friends mentioned it to me. I loved it so much because I had never
00:10:19.660heard her name. I had heard Tao's name, Theo Van Gogh, Vincent's brother, who was his tireless
00:10:27.560art patron for his whole life. But the truth is he died about a year after Vincent. And after that,
00:10:33.920Vincent's entire legacy was left to Joe to manage. And she was tireless in doing it. And I think I
00:10:41.000would love to see her name mentioned as often as we we talk about vincent's brother and also when
00:10:47.200we talk about these artists i want to know about the people behind the scenes i think you've helped
00:10:54.460that and i really do mean that because you make it more accessible you know um i think people a
00:10:59.420little less likely to go pick up you know i have a few a few of these biographies on on vincent
00:11:06.780and they're so thick like they're daunting and um but yours makes it uh much more enjoyable i think
00:11:14.820accessible stories like that especially in the mass media um because your book will be a huge
00:11:21.100hit that won't be a big surprise to you or your audience and people start to learn hey there's
00:11:26.620this person and i think it'll inspire um you know just the way the world's wide web works you know
00:11:32.800people will start to read about it, the more clicks her name gets, the more interesting it
00:11:37.880becomes and she'll take on a new life. So I think I think you've really contributed to that.
00:11:44.620Well, thank you. And that's my goal, right? I wanted this to be fun. I wanted people to pick
00:11:48.060it up and read it at the beach or the pool. Or as you told me, you were just reading it at the
00:11:52.520laundromat after your washing machine broke. But and let it be a gateway drug into into the world
00:11:59.960of art that too often does seem very rarefied and often inaccessible. Okay, let's take a really
00:12:08.840quick break here. We'll be right back. And we're back. I do want to talk about the museum that you
00:12:23.220work in, the Gardner, because I think it's such a special museum. And I think the Gardner, similar
00:12:29.580to what the Barnes does in Philadelphia, has done such incredible work at bringing these
00:12:34.560masterpieces that we might not have otherwise seen to the public.
00:12:56.880She felt the country needed a great museum and in 1903 opened this building that she conceived of and dreamt up and paid for and populated with art.
00:13:11.060It's the only place like it in the world, frankly, where every single aspect of it, right down to the name, is for a woman.
00:13:20.600And when she died, her will said that nothing in the museum could be changed.
00:13:49.340then the entire collection has to be auctioned off
00:13:51.780and the money goes to Harvard University.
00:13:55.280So it stays exactly as she left it, and time has shown that she did an incredible job of designing this place and decorating and hanging her art.
00:14:08.660And I'm lucky to be, I've been here for nearly 21 years, and I'm very lucky.
00:14:12.980I still haven't seen everything in here.
00:14:14.900There's just so many thousands of pieces of art, and it's a real privilege to get to be here every day.
00:14:23.020And to that end, the picture frames for the Vermeers that were stolen remain empty on the walls, right?
00:14:32.620Yeah. So when the theft happened in 1990, it was March 18th.
00:14:38.100So it was overnight just after St. Patrick's Day and two men disguised as police officers rang the employee buzzer at 124 and a guard broke protocol and let the police in.
00:17:01.200Yes, we, you know, the statute of limitations ran out after five years.
00:17:05.980So at the time of the heist, the statute was five years.
00:17:09.340it's now 15 um because of our theft but uh who who took the paintings as such a secondary thing
00:17:17.880only interested in in the sense that hopefully it'll lead us in the right direction towards
00:17:23.540recovery but um nobody thinks about you know who did it we just think about the paintings back
00:17:30.280in the frames that's that's job one you know i'd liken it to a kidnapping you know um that poor
00:17:39.020savannah guthrie i mean my heart really goes out to her and her family and you know she the last
00:17:44.400the the second thing she cares about is who who took her mother number one is where is her mother
00:17:50.680and getting her mother back there's so much more important and she would certainly sacrifice
00:17:56.280the second part of that for the first getting her mother back so that's sort of how we look at the
00:18:02.520paintings and i don't i don't want to be insulting in any way you know paintings no of course not
00:18:06.480Right. But, you know, these paintings are important. These things are supposed to be on these walls and be for our education enjoyment forever, not for the lifespan of any one person. So we'll never stop looking for them. We never we never have. We we've been on the hunt ourselves as an institution since day one, unlike any other regime in the world.
00:18:32.840Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I and you write. So I've read all of your books when I was working on the Parisian heist. And, you know, thank you in the acknowledgments and the notes, because you really you did help me help me shape this heist in so many ways.
00:18:53.260But more than the heist, you helped me shape how art thieves think about art, what their motivations are as well.
00:19:02.920And I, you know, I thought about that so much when I was reading the Rembrandt heist that you wrote.
00:19:08.920You know, the reasons that people steal art and the many motivations.
00:19:15.940I mean, what are the reasons that people steal art?
00:19:19.680It's not always just money because you can't always resell these things.
00:19:23.260Like, it's kind of a myth that you could just, you know, take a Van Gogh or a Vermeer off the wall and then just resell it the next day to some rich guy.
00:19:55.400But people that steal this stuff, they're common thieves, and they steal all sorts of things.
00:20:01.040They commit all manner of crime, and this is just another job.
00:20:05.580And if they find out that the masterpiece they stole is of no value to them, then so what?
00:20:10.820They're going to keep continuing. They're going to continue to do other crime every week, right? So they steal them and they hide them. And that makes it far more difficult for someone like me. So that's the first part. But the second part is difficult, too, because if you if you read the Rembrandt heist, you see this character, Miles Conner, who is this great outlier in terms of art thieves.
00:20:36.600his motive was rarely money, whereas every other thief is money. And the lesson you get from this
00:20:43.180is you can follow profiles. Profiles are important. You should know the profile of the sort of
00:20:50.140criminal you're seeking. However, you always have to consider that the person who committed
00:20:56.380the crime you're investigating doesn't fit the profile. And you can never just discount people
00:21:03.420based on theory. So it's a very, very important lesson for people, whether you're hunting down
00:21:10.740an art thief or you're hunting down a serial killer, the person might be outside of the
00:21:16.400profile. And that's one of the things you learn from the Rembrandt heist. Yeah. Yeah. And I think
00:21:25.400that we do get very caught up in these archetypes of, like, who is a thief of anything, right?
00:21:34.120And I will also say, one of the things I really wanted to flip the script on is that
00:21:41.260in so many movies, art thieves are men. Are men more likely to be art thieves in real life than
00:21:50.180women? Well, like I always say, men are more likely to be the criminal by far. Men do the bad
00:21:58.100stuff. But again, you can profile a crime down to just men, but then you look and you find a
00:22:05.560woman named Rose Dugdale about whom I wrote a book. Yes, which is also wonderful. We're going
00:22:10.220to put it in the show notes. Thank you so much. She stole a Vermeer in 1974. Vermeer's paintings
00:22:17.580are amongst the most valuable in the world, if not the most valuable. And so again, if you're
00:22:23.520investigating that crime, you're going to think, well, this heist must have been pulled off by a
00:22:29.060man. But in fact, it wasn't just a woman, but the woman was a mastermind. And what made her story
00:22:35.720really interesting to me was, if you read it, you read the judge's comments in 1974, they really
00:22:44.880were a sign of their times because no matter what crimes this woman committed, the judge would always
00:22:49.580just assume she was under the influence of some man. And that's why she did it. And he would go1.00
00:22:54.680light. They would go light on her. And the fact is, is she was always the mastermind and the strong
00:22:59.860one. She was the leader. So it's this strange sort of anti-hero. Um, you know, I, I, I hate to think
00:23:07.760of anybody who steals a Vermeer as a hero. But I think you get my point. It's sort of
00:23:13.920she she shows how the architect doesn't work exactly as you would just mention it.
00:23:20.640Right. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it goes against casting in our minds. Right. And yet. Yeah. And
00:23:26.740I don't think that we see them as heroes. But, you know, the one thing that I do want to unpack
00:23:31.760a little bit when we get back from our next break is the idea that in movies and in books,
00:23:37.260the audience is kind of rooting for the thieves.
00:23:47.280The one thing that I do want to unpack a little bit is the idea that in movies and in books,
00:23:53.540the audience is kind of rooting for the thieves.
00:24:28.320He will definitely come. And people are over the moon for him. They ask him to sign the book. When I say a part in the story where he gets arrested, you hear the the audience go, oh, they clap for him. And I keep reminding him he's the criminal here. He's not the good guy. But people are just attracted to it. And it's just I think it's just a cultural thing that's very difficult to overcome.
00:24:51.800Yeah, I mean, I think it is. And I think it goes back to what we talked about, you know, this idea of this particular kind of heist, unlike, say, maybe a bank heist or a home robbery, as feeling like a victimless crime, even though it isn't, does make it easier to make the art thieves heroes in a way.
00:25:16.700And I think that that's just an interesting idea for us to think about. Like, who gets to be the hero or heroine of a story? And how do our pre-existing views shape that? Shape who gets to be the hero? And how do their motivations shape it?
00:25:33.140I mean, I would say, you know, everyone has to read it.
00:25:57.980But I do want my audience to cheer for my art thieves.
00:26:00.760Because you have to, to want to keep turning the page.
00:26:03.140Right. And I would say that except for maybe one, if that many, your audience probably has not had a multimillion dollar masterpiece stolen from them. Right. So everybody who's reading it, they're thinking, well, you know, that's not going to happen to me. It hasn't happened to me or anyone in my family or anyone I know.
00:26:27.140And you just, if you can't easily picture the victim,
00:26:31.000it's easy for you to root for the clever thief.
00:26:35.640Because so few of us know anyone that this has happened to.
00:26:39.880And moreover, especially in the United States,
00:26:42.180it's incredibly rare for anybody working at the museum
00:26:45.920to be harmed in the commission of a theft.
00:26:49.360So people don't think of it as a violent crime here.
00:26:52.100ironically, in Europe, where guns are not easily accessible, you're far more likely to see
00:26:59.720an art heist involving a weapon. Here in the United States, you don't. And I think this is
00:27:07.920my back and napkin guess. I think it's because in Europe, if you're carrying a gun into a museum
00:27:16.920for a heist nobody there is armed in the united states if you come with a gun you might be facing
00:27:22.800someone who's armed so there's really no point in it so you see a big difference um and also if you
00:27:30.520if you perform an armed robbery in the united states you're gonna and if and you're caught
00:27:35.860you're gonna face a much stiffer sentence especially if someone is shot or killed right
00:27:41.600right exactly exactly well and i think that makes a good point right if because so many of these
00:27:46.780aren't so-called violent crimes uh i think it does make it easier to put yourself in the shoes
00:27:54.700of the criminal i mean i have talked to so many people and i have this line in the book and like
00:27:59.480you know how many of us have walked into a museum and thought could i steal that painting
00:28:05.060and i think the answer is a lot of us i no longer think that after talking to you because you you
00:28:12.160explained the hardware and the mechanics of many of the security measures and i'm like oh yeah i
00:28:16.760don't think i could work on that security screw all right that seems that's that that's much harder
00:28:20.920much harder than i thought it would be but it's harder in such boring ways right it's not lasers
00:28:25.420it's like a little screw that only one screwdriver will fit that will get this painting off the wall
00:28:30.720right well that's one layer you know like in the movies there aren't red laser beams but there are
00:28:36.400invisible microwaves that are in the in the gallery that are detecting movement so they're
00:28:43.840actually better. And that, you know, the next generation, and we're moving towards it here
00:28:49.640at my museum, will be one of the first is to use artificial intelligence in your camera
00:28:56.260surveillance system. So, you know, if you think about what happened at the Louvre, one of the
00:29:00.800issues is that the people monitoring the cameras did not see what was going on in that balcony.
00:29:06.820And at first glance, for the public, that sounds unacceptable. Like, how could they have not seen
00:29:11.220it. Well, step back for a second and think about the enormity of the Louvre. It's gigantic. I mean,
00:29:16.900they have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cameras and a handful of people cannot monitor
00:29:22.980every camera all day, but artificial intelligence can. And the artificial intelligence software,
00:29:29.840AI cameras and such, will tell the operator something's happening here, something's happening
00:29:36.660there. So you won't have to look. It'll look for you and show you. So it's going to improve security
00:29:42.700in places like museums drastically. It's going to force thieves to find different ways to
00:29:51.040perpetrate heists, which they will. They always do. But it'll just be that much harder.
00:29:58.800Do you think most thieves have to have some kind of inside knowledge about exactly what security
00:30:05.120measures any individual museum has? Because they do vary so much by institution.
00:30:11.700That's such a great question. Yes. 80 to 90 percent of all museum heists involve some sort
00:30:18.280of inside information. You're exactly right. You know, museums aren't regulated in the United States.
00:30:24.940So every museum does security the way they want to. So it's not easily discerned what a particular
00:30:34.020the museum is doing to protect its collection. You know, it's not like say airports where
00:30:38.720there were regulations and, and that's what the airports follow. Um, a museum may have no security.
00:30:45.280It's their collection, or it might have, you know, Fort Knox level security like us at the
00:30:51.420museum. So, um, you do have to have, or at least try to have some sort of inside info
00:30:58.580as to what you're, you're going up against, because, you know, there are serious consequences
00:31:02.940to being caught um so yeah you you hit on something really important uh if a theft happens
00:31:08.980at a museum the first thing one of the first things uh that the investigatory team needs to do
00:31:14.700is start to interview the uh employees to see if they were involved yeah that that that makes
00:31:22.420sense to me and like i said i don't walk into a museum museum anymore and think wow i could pull
00:31:26.700off an art heist i no longer believe that i can so you i think our book will actually do a lot to
00:31:32.600dissuade people from stealing priceless priceless works of art even though my heist is simple
00:31:38.340it is still something i do not think that i could do but someone might try you know and but i'm glad
00:31:45.760you're taking that approach because when i first started in 2005 one of the things i noticed doing
00:31:53.060my research into art theft was that every time a big heist would happen the police or the other
00:31:59.580investigators involved would inevitably say this was clearly the work of professionals but
00:32:04.600i was finding as i found out who was doing these heists that there really aren't professionals
00:32:10.640so to speak they weren't this team of traveling art thieves like you would think in the movies you
00:32:16.140know and um the more you can dissuade people from thinking this is some easy thing that can be done
00:32:23.100uh like your your uh efforts are uh geared towards i think that will help and it will
00:32:30.100also help investigators to understand who really does it and those things are all
00:32:34.060great bonuses for the art world yeah no i i completely agree because i do not think that
00:32:40.000the louvre heist did museums any favors uh because it did make it seem like it was so easy when i
00:32:46.300mean in fact i think that you know i think they got very lucky and even though their plan was very
00:32:50.360basic uh but I do think after the Louvre heist a lot of people are like yeah no I could 100% do
00:32:55.360that yeah you know I think um one of the things I try to tell people when when when I'm asked about
00:33:02.200the Louvre heist is excuse me I'm sorry is um every major museum has been hit so when when people
00:33:10.600think boy how could that happen at the Louvre I always say well we'll point to a place where it
00:33:14.640hasn't where hasn't it happened and it will continue happening and it'll happen again at
00:33:19.880museum this month and it happened that one in italy last month um it it happens all the time
00:33:26.820there are a heck of a lot of museums and um again with various levels of security so when you look
00:33:34.520at what happened at the louvre instantly every other institution stops and says could this have
00:33:39.420happened here and you know a lot of security directors will say no no no that couldn't have
00:33:44.740happen here, but it probably could. So it depends that, you know, you have to be honest with
00:33:50.200yourself as an institution. Can you be 100% secure? No. Your goal is to try to keep striving
00:33:56.660towards that 100%, never become complacent. Exactly. Exactly. Because I do think so much
00:34:05.640of pulling off a heist is just looking for an opportunity. It's opportunity and luck and some
00:34:11.280planning and an inside job and i just feel so lucky that i had you as my heist expert
00:34:18.880well i'm lucky to have somebody who gets it in you because you're exactly right um it's opportunity
00:34:27.360there's uh an element of luck without a doubt you know like you you pulling a painting off the wall
00:34:35.360god forbid imagine you know if the smashing grab imagine the frame breaks in your hands and it
00:34:41.000ruins the canvas i mean there's some luck for the owner of the painting as well because that's a
00:34:45.940worse result than sf is you know catastrophic damage to the art so um there is an element of
00:34:52.900luck there's uh the opportunistic thief who visits the museum or hears from an insider
00:35:01.880that they can pull something off you know but as they say there's the
00:35:05.840a motivated offender, a suitable target in the absence of a capable guardian will entice thieves
00:35:14.460every time. So, you know, if you have somebody who is intent on pulling off a heist, especially
00:35:21.120one who's capable or willing to hurt people and they have a target that maybe they haven't
00:35:30.560set information and the security isn't in a position where it can stop one of these thieves,
00:35:36.380then you're in big trouble. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I want everyone to read all of your books. Will
00:35:42.840you tell them where they can find them and order them and just find more information about you?
00:35:49.780Well, thank you very much for that. My books are all available on anywhere you buy books. Of course,
00:35:54.880They're available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble online and the other online e-tailers.
00:36:01.320And you can get the latest one called the Rembrandt Heist at Barnes & Noble and other bookstores that you frequent, and I hope you do.
00:36:11.840And you can read about me and my work at my website, which is simply anthonyamore.com.