A New Lead in the Biggest Art Heist in History

On the night of 18 March 1990, the largest art heist in history occurred at the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum in Boston, when $500 million worth of artwork was stolen, including paintings by Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt and Édouard Manet, as well as drawings by Edgar Degas and a Chinese bronze vessel from the twelfth century BC.

The spectacular robbery attracted much media attention and has been covered in numerous publications and documentaries. The museum itself has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the investigation. However, the case remains cold and none of the works of art have reappeared.

See also: 10 Major Art Thefts in 10 Years

However, leads have brought investigators into the mafia community in and around Boston because two gangsters Bobby Guarente (†2004) and Robert Gentile (†2021), considered the main suspects, were said to have tried to sell the works on the black market in 2002. But there is one other person whose fate may be linked to the incident, as Bob Ward has now reported in Boston 25 News 'New England Unsolved' series: Jimmy Marks.

See also: The FBI of the Art World

Jimmy Marks was shot dead outside his home in Lynn near Boston on 10 February 1991, eleven months after the art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum. Marks died by two shots to the back of the head, a tactic reminiscent of a mafia-style execution.

Jimmy Marks was a career criminal who served time in prison for bank robberies in the 1960s and was closely associated with Bobby Guarente. As early as 2010, Guarante's widow Elene testified to the FBI that her deceased husband gave two of the stolen paintings to Gentile and also killed Marks. However, this could never be proven and the murder of Marks has remained just as unsolved as the art heist in Boston.

See also: The Top 10 Stolen Masterpieces

But now investigators have been tipped off that Jimmy Marks had bragged about hiding some of the paintings from the art robbery before he died. Was Mark's downfall due to his careless behaviour that led the thieves to get him out of the way? 

In fact, investigators have suspected the two crimes have been connected for a decade, although searches of Jimmy Mark's home have never turned up the slightest clue. The new information, however, shows that the lead towards the Mafia, with Guarente and Gentile at its core, is still a hot one.

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