Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Insider Exposes Secrets Behind the World’s Largest Heist | Gardner Museum Heist

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Anthony Amore, Art Theft Expert and Author of the Rembrandt Heist, joins Matt Cox to break down the infamous unsolved Gardner art heist, Myles Connor, and more! ⁣ ⁣ Go to https://buyraycon.com/ITCOpen to get 20% off sitewide. Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring!⁣ ⁣ Check out his book here - https://a.co/d/12SaGFk⁣ https://anthonyamore.substack.com⁣ https://x.com/anthonymamore⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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for a job, but I saw the job announcement in the Boston Globe one day. It was this little ad. I was like, this is the place where the biggest theft in history happened. And they're only putting this little ad in the newspaper for a new security person. So I applied. And I got the job. And I turned it down because of the salary. And then nine months later, they called me. And we came to an agreement.

But I had a switch from counterterrorism sort of work to... Smash and grab. Yeah. Being concerned. Like, can somebody get to this painting? Can they get it out? Exactly. Exactly, you know, and what are the different ways they do it?

I don't know. All I know is from what I see in movies. And that's all really anybody knows, you know, for the general public thinks it's like the movies, Thomas Crown Affair type stuff. That was just saying cut out. Yeah, and it's nothing at all like that. And I remember when I started researching it on day one,

I said, I'm going to keep a database of every art heist in history, every detail on how it happened. And I started doing that. and I noticed that the police would always say this was the work of a master professional art thief. But as I was researching these, I was seeing there's no such thing. It's just common criminals doing this.

They see this opportunity, like you said, a smashing grab. It's things worth millions of dollars. I can get it. And then they go and do it. So law enforcement sort of had their eyes on the wrong prize. They were looking for these Thomas Crown-type characters. Right. When it's the guy who robbed the pharmacy last week for Oxy.

Yeah, because, I mean, you have to, you know, it's, it's hard to move, you know, a Picasso. You know, it's hard to move. Yeah, it's hard to move, uh, uh, Edward Munch, you know, the scream. Like, it's been stolen multiple times. They keep, yeah, they keep recovering it. Right. So, I mean, it's, you know, I guess what is it, the Sea of Galilee? Is that?

Storm in the Sea of Galilee. Yeah, like, like, like, yeah. No one's can buy that. No one's buying that. Nobody. You could buy it and stick it in your vault and roll it up, or even you could even spread it out. You can even restretch the canvas and put it up there, but you can never show anybody this. Exactly.

And no one's going to give you millions of dollars to something they can't show. So who's going to pay for that? Nobody. So that's why it doesn't happen. So the public thinks these things are stolen because some billionaire in Brunei wants it. And he pays a guy 100 grand to go steal it. And then that guy gives it to the Sultan of Brunei. enjoys it on his own forever because that's what they saw in a movie.

Right. But in reality, you said it perfectly. No one's going to do that. They're not going to give you 10% for $150 million painting. Spend $15 million. I don't care who you are and never show it to anybody. Right. Why would you?

Why don't it just go buy one? So can you explain real quick the Gardner Museum heist? Sure. How it happened? It's just the basics from the two guards, the knock on the door, the police officers, that whole thing. You don't have to go into all the other stuff. We'll get into that a minute.

But the basic of the understanding. So it was St. Patrick's Day goes into the 18th. So March 17th, 1990, Patrick's Day every year is a big celebration in Boston. But then at 1.24 in the morning, so technically the next day, there's two guards at the time. We used to have two overnight guards back in the day. And the guards at the watch desk, the other guy's doing his rounds upstairs. And the employee entrance, the buzzer goes off, and he hits the intercom and says hello. And it's two police officers.

And one says Boston police were responding to a disturbance in the compound. That's because the museum is surrounded by a big wall. So the guard buzzes them in through a man trap. And that's against policy and protocol, right? The protocol was if anybody rings the buzzer at night, especially the police, And you haven't called them, call the police because it's a fail safe. Right. They're either going to come if it's not really them, or they're going to say, no, it's fine.

It's our guys. But he didn't do that. He buzzed them in. So once he did that, it's over. At that time in history, it's over. So they come in, they talk to the guard. One of them, you know, the classic, the brains and the muscle, right? The leader does all the talking.

The other guy stands back, bigger guy. The guy at the desk says, yeah, we got a call about a distort. servants in the compound, anything going on? The kid says, no, I don't think so. And he says, who's working with you tonight? He says, one other guy. He says, we'll get him down here. So the guard radios, hey, can you come down?

Kid comes about 35 seconds later. They're both young. They're in their mid-20s, say. Musicians. And he says, once the two guards. Getting paid nothing. Getting paid nothing, right? They're just observing report guards.

Right. Common in the industry to be getting paid nothing to. It wasn't the Gardner music. was cheap or whatever. So now the two guards are there, the two cops are there. The cop says to the original kid, you look familiar to me. Do I know you from somewhere?

And he says, I don't think so. The cop says, well, let me see your ID. So he hands him his driver's license and his museum ID. And he says, yeah, there's a warrant out for you. Come out from behind that desk. How do you know that? And the kid does, right. But he's just a kid.

He's a kid. And he sees the uniform. Yep. He's just a, you know, he's passed away. So forgive me. but he's like a burnout kid. He comes out from behind the desk. Now the two guards are away from any communication with the outside world.

The cops says you two are under arrest, assume the position. And if you remember back in those days, that was a TV show. They put your hands on the wall. They're going to cuff you, then frisk you. So they cuff them, and then they don't frisk them. They say, gentlemen, this is a robbery. If you do what we say, we're not going to harm you. We're just here for the paintings.

Don't put up a fight. and the kid that led him in, he's all of like five, six, 120 pounds. He says they don't pay us enough to put up a fight. Right. Which is true, right? Right. These are not Navy SEALs, I always say. They're observing report guards.

So then they take duct tape. They blindfold them with the duct tape. Oh, that's a dick move. But okay, go ahead. And the kid has big curly here. They take them downstairs and they separate them as far as you could separate guys in this dark basement, which is sort of a clue to me. me, you know, that's a risky thing to do.

They separate them by about 50 yards, cuff them to pipes in the basement, then they come upstairs and start stealing stuff. But what's really interesting is coming at 124, they don't start stealing things until 148. So they're in this place for 24 minutes before they start stealing anything. This includes moving the guy, taping them, moving them. So even if you say that takes all of 10 minutes, max. You're still talking about roughly, what, 15, 20 minutes? right?

Yeah, it's strange because if you look at the history of art theft, I mentioned, I have this database of like 1,500, every detail. If you have a normal curve, you're going to see these things take between three and nine minutes, right? So we've played it out, you know, walk in, talk to the guys, guy comes down, take him down, and say, I shouldn't have taken more than five minutes. I mean, because they were literally only with the guards for 90 seconds, two minutes max. Anyway, it does tell you they know something about the museum, right? Because they're so cavalier

to spend all that time before they even start taking stuff. So they go to a room together, the Dutch room, second floor, and they go right for Storm in the Sea of Galilee, which is big. It's five feet by four feet. Very valuable. Only seascape Rembrandin ever painted. Probably the most popular painting in the city. Everyone knows it. They take the big frames off the wall. again, once they get all the frames down, the second guy starts going to another room. And he takes, it's really hard to explain what he took. He took five works by Daegas, which aren't, relatively speaking, particularly valuable in terms of dollars. And they all have a theme of jockeys and horses, right?

Because we know the guys who did it, and they hung out at the racetrack. Right. This is what they would like. Then they took a Napoleonic finial, a bronze eagle, looks like it's gold. Right. It's worth nothing. Is it worth something or no? A used car. Yeah. You know, you could buy them.

Yeah. But this is the thing with thieves, they hear, they go for the big names, right? Because they don't know art history, but they know Rembrandt. They know Picasso. We get stolen all the time. They know they name Napoleon. Like at the Louvre, they took Napoleonic jewels, right? But back in the Dutch room, the other guys taking the paintings out of the frames.

the two biggest ones he cuts them out. But they're very rigid these paintings because they've been reinforced over the year. So they didn't roll them. They just cut them out and they carried them like cardboard. The only paint chips that are on the floor are almost like dust. I've seen them on a table. And you have to hold your breath.

If they had rolled these paintings, the canvas would have crinkled and there'd be big paint chips, but they weren't. So we don't believe they rolled them. And then they took, so they take these two. two big Rembrandt, they take a small Rembrandt, two inches by two inches, and to show you how comfortable they were in the museum, rather than just take this little frame, they take the whole frame apart, nine screws out of the back, take this little etching, because they knew the cops weren't coming.

Then they took a painting by a guy named Govert Flink. They thought it was Rembrandt. The museum thought it was Rembrandt, but it's not. It's Govert Flink. But the most valuable thing they took was a painting by Johannes Vermeer. called the concert. And Vermeer, there's about 36 Ramirez in the world. This is the only one that's missing.

It's the most valuable thing that's ever been stolen in history. Nothing comes close. Is it the woman? She's playing like a cello? There's a woman at a virginal. It's like a harpsichord. And there's a woman about to sing, and there's this mysterious man playing a strained instrument,

and you only see him from behind. And it's like Vermeer paintings are mysterious. You try to figure out what's going on in this thing. And they're incredible. So that's so, I mean, it's far more valuable than, 100 times more valuable than what the Mona Lisa was when it was stolen. When the Mona Lisa was stolen, the theft made it famous, essentially. But this Vermeer, there's nothing like it in the world that's ever been stolen,

and it's been missing for 35 years. So the thieves make their way out. They've been in the museum for 81 minutes. One leaves, the other one leaves five minutes later, and that's it. 35 years. There have been some alleged sightings of the paintings. There have been a lot of sightings of things that look like are paintings but are not. And there are a lot of people who try to, who call me and say they have my paintings, but they're con men. I get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of con men over the years who call me and say, I have your painting. Send me a high resolution

image of it. And I send you the front. And you could see it's not. But then you always say, they're okay, send me a picture of the back. Then they panic because they don't know what's on the back. So they try to guess, and they do these goofy things in the back, and you're like, okay, it's not bothering me. But that's where we stand now. I work on it. I've been on it for 20 years.

The FBI agent I worked with the whole time retired about a year ago, April. And so we have new agents working on it with me. In the U.S. Attorney's Office of Massachusetts is awesome. I mean, they work really hard on it, too. So we have all the everything behind us to try to get this back. The most important thing is a $10 million reward. So we, the Gardner Museum has this $10 million reward. And it's for information that leads me directly to the paintings.

So we won't pay a ransom. We're not going to pay thieves, but we'll pay $10 million if you provide me with information that gets me from A to B paintings in hand. What is your theory on what really happened? Like who, who, you, you mentioned earlier, you said, you know who took it. Yeah. Like, what do you, who do you, do you know who took it? Like, why aren't there arrest?

Like, what, what are your thoughts? Well, we know that the, the people involved are dead. Okay. And they, they were dead. Hard to arrest them. Very hard to arrest them. Even harder to talk to them. Yeah.

And, uh, you can talk to them. Yeah. They're not going to answer you. Yeah. It's just horrible conversations. It's hard to get a response. Um, and yes, every psychic in the world gets in touch of me, too. And they're all, you know.

Talk about con men, but we know who did it. The problem is art theft, art heist are riddled with examples, big examples, of the thieves being caught, but the paintings or the jewels not being recovered. Again, the Louvre is a great example, sadly. They got the people who did it, but they don't have the jewels. I know an art thief in the Netherlands. His name is Octav Durham, our brilliant thief. been stealing things this entire life.

He stole two Picasso's. He sold him for like $30,000 to a gangster. Just as a collateral. Not, I couldn't care less about the paintings. But when he was arrested, he was convicted, he served time. When he got out, he still didn't know where the paintings were. Right? So he's walking the streets and he's doing interviews, but he has no clue where the paintings

are. Ultimately, the Italian police found him in the, buried it in the floor of a beach house on the shores of Naples. in the possession of the parents of a mafioso. I mean, so that's the problem. Really well preserved. Fortunately, you know, fortunately, these things, when they're recovered, are always reparable.

You can always fix them. Yeah. But the key thing that the public doesn't understand is knowing who stole something and knowing where that item is, there's an ocean between those two things, because you can hide them anywhere, right? And it's not, I always say, it's not like Whitey Bulger, right?

Storm in the Sea of Galilee doesn't have to go to the doctor or to CVS or to get a haircut or to buy milk. It just sits there, right, until someone gets to it. So that's why, you know, knowing who did it and knowing that the paintings are are drastically different things. Well, who did do it? Well, you don't want to say or? No. So it's an open case because I'm still working on it, but there are articles out there. My former partner, when he retired, he did an article at the Boston Globe.

You can look it up and he'll say who he believes did it. But when I say it doesn't matter, to some extent it doesn't. What's important is what's the circle they operated in? What were their avenues for, who were their girlfriends? Where did they hide stuff? because you know, probably better than I do, they use hides. Yeah. Right?

And they're clever. The hides are clever. I know an art thief who stole one of these, not a strata various, but a violin that was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I said, where'd you hide it? And he said, well, I just busted a hole in the wall, put it in there, and put some drywall over it. Right? So, okay, why did they do it? Like they had to have a goal.

Was it, was it that they were, did they really think they were going to sell it to Japanese businessmen or and get millions or do they think, you know, that there was another, like they could use it as collateral for loans, for mobsters, you know, the things that they do was the other one that they do.

Somebody can bargain their way out of prison. You know, those types of like is, or, hey, no, we're going to sell, you know, we're sell it for big money.

And then once they got it, they realized, fuck, you know, we can't get anything. And there's so much heat. on it, let's just bury it somewhere. And is that the one or which one is it?

Making me think that maybe you were involved. That's a really clever analysis because that's all true. That's accurate. What you just said is the scenario, right? But 99.9% of the time, without exaggeration, it's money. So when they go off these things, it's money, right? But then, as you mentioned earlier, you can't sell them. Sorry, so what do you do with it?

You just give it back? That's very, very rare. It happens incredibly rare. rare. So, all right, you think, well, what can I use this thing for? Because say the Gardner case, you go to steal these things, every place in Massachusetts had been robbed before the Godner, right? There's this myth out there that the Gardner was robbed because security was known to be bad. That's baloney. Every other place has been robbed. And you can look at the examples of what happened with these things, of Rembrandt stolen, and you can't sell them. But anyway,

the value in the newspaper will say $5 million, $10 million. So these guys, guys go steal these paintings from the gardener when they woke up the next day and the pay some paper said two some said 300 million believe me they were like whoa i get it they're plastered all over the world the the the price is astronomical now you know you can't sell them so what do you do with them well you can hide them you can use them as get out of jail free cards and why would you know you can do that because in 1975 Miles Connor who's the greatest art thief in history did that. He stole a Rembrandt and used it to get out of prison.

So maybe that's something you'll do. And you point you to another option is collateral. It's, especially in Europe, it's used often as collateral in a drug trade. It's like, I know this guy's good for the money that he's going to have to pass because we know he has the monk, Edward Monk, the Scream, or he has, you know, DeGar, or you name it. So there's married options. Problem for people like me is that compared to jewels or banks in terms of big money,

those are far more difficult than a museum robbery. All right. Did you ever, do you know Gerald Blanchard? He's from Canada. He robbed a museum in, I'm going to say Belgium. Gerald Blanchard. and in Belgium he which was really an old castle

you know so it's not great it's not set up great right and he actually parachuted down oh yeah you remember landed gets in through the almost falls off the roof gets in through the window steals the the cis

I'm gonna say diamond but I don't I think it was a bunch of diamonds coer diamond pearl and it was in Austria Austria okay so he takes it, can't sell it. Like, you could break it apart. Right. But he takes it and he sticks it in his grandmother's basement in a crawl space underneath. And then when he eventually gets caught years later, uh, that's one of the things he used to get a sweet deal. Yeah. Where it's like, hey, he's like,

I do, give you this, this, this, this, this, and I can help you solve it international. You know, I've got it in my grandmother's basement in Ottawa. And, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, You guys, they've been looking for it in Austria for two or three years. They have no clue. Right. And what's funny is they were like, well, how do we know? You have it? How do we know?

And he explained, I parachute. I jumped out of an airplane and dead of night and parachuted down. They thought it was so insane. They were like, this is so over the top. There's no fucking way that happened. So they call the Austrians and they're like, are you serious? He said that. And they're like, yeah, that's what he said.

How he said it did it. And they're like, you know, so they're kind of laughing about it. And they said, we found the parachute. He stuffed it. in a garbage can in front of it. When he left, he took the parachute and stuffed in a garbage can. They found it a couple days later. Because it took them two or three days to even realize that the diamond was gone.

Because he had taken a, he'd gone in the gift shop and bought a plastic one and glued it in the place of where it was. It was only like a trigger. Uh-huh. So when he was able to get the glass, whatever, the cage open, he just put some glue. And he glued the trigger. And once it was set, he just pulled it off. And then he put the other one down, glued that one on, put the case down, took off. So it took him several days before they were finally, they recognized, hey, this is not it.

And then they still found the parachute when they were trying to put it together. And that's how he proved. It was him. Yeah, but that's the whole thing. He had it there hidden. And get out of G. A little free card. I don't think he got a job.

I think he did. Cuts his time. Well, I think he got five years in Canada, which means he did 18 months on an ankle monitor in his living room. You know, it's because, you know, the canings are tough on a crowd. Yeah. Right. crime. So, yeah. But same thing, yeah.

It sounds like something from the cartoons, right? You can hit you do this. Switch the, switch the diamonds. Yeah, the Indiana Jones. That's what it is. Yeah. But you know that. Did you see Indiana Jones?

I saw the TikTok of the Indiana Jones thing at Disney World where the ball fell off and rolled towards the audience. This is, like Colby was born in like. 94. You have a Netflix subscription? I do. He's just. I don't really.

watch much movies. Yeah. I just, I'm just, I'm just working all day on the podcast. That's admirable. That's admirable.

I don't know. That's unacceptable. The smart thing is the Austrians held back the parachute information. Yeah. Right? Because they always kind of hold,

you always kind of want to hold something back, right? Right. But it doesn't always happen. Right. You know, people ask me like, why,

why don't you put out the names of who you think stole the paintings? I'm like, because if I do, I'm going to get 7,000 calls from people

saying they knew those guys. Right. Right. But if I hold back the names and I get a call naming one of them, now it's, you know, move everything aside and stop working out. Yeah, at least that guy goes, at least that phone call gets to the top of the pile. Yeah, some bona fides, right? But it's still difficult.

You're looking for a location. You get a lot of people who write to you with their theories. Oh, yeah, I don't need your theories. Oh, my God. Thank you. Yeah. Or ideas. I love the guys who have, they send me ideas for a podcast.

I got a great idea for a podcast. It's like, I'm honestly, we're good. Yeah. Thank you. A million. I'm okay. Right. I appreciate it.

Like, I don't have enough to do. I think I hit the nail on the head with this one. Thanks. You want me to get Snowden on the podcast? Yeah. I'm thinking that's probably not going to happen. Like, really. Watching too much, you'll have Snowden on the podcast.

Yeah. Wouldn't that be great? So, okay, so we don't know where, we're not going to solve this. You don't know where the paintings are? I am, but not today. Right. Okay. We're not going to solve it right now.

So, and then these guys are mostly kind of just deceased. And you're not, there's multiple reasons they may have taken it. Do you? I believe they took it for money. Just straight money and then they realized it was just too late. Always. Always. Okay.

Very specific. And that's what I base the books I've written on. So I like to look at the people who are the outliers, right? Because everybody fits on a normal curve, but there's some people who are outliers. And I like to tell their stories, right? So I book before my most recent was about a woman named Rose Dougdale. And she's like this multimillionaire, heiress, Oxford Educated Ph.D. in Great Britain, had the life of Riley laid out in front of her, but she was committed to helping the IRA,

even though she was British aristocrat. And long story short, she and some IRA renegades steal 19 paintings from a gigantic home in Ireland to try to help some IRA prisoners get out of jail. Right? So she didn't do it for money. She didn't need money. She did it for a political reason. But that's incredibly rare.

And then you have Miles Conner. Right. So far outside of the realm, so far outside of normal behavior of an art criminal that he fascinates me. That's why I became... How did you stumble on to him? If you are involved in,

in art theft investigations. His name comes up. He hits you like a sledgehammer. He's Miles Connor. Nobody's robbed more museums than him. There's a guy who stole more objects than him in France, but nobody's stolen more value than Miles. Nobody comes close to stealing things for the reason

he stole them. It's fascinating. And the guy's criminal career is like nothing anybody's ever heard of. This video is sponsored by Raycon. I've been using Raycon's essential open earbuds, and they're really good. I can listen to music or podcasts and still hear what's going on around me. It's perfect for the gym, walking outside, or even when I'm working.

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Go to buy raycon.com slash ITC open to get 20% off sitewide. Thank you, Raycon, for sponsoring this video. My mother-in-law's friend just finished my book on Miles and said, I love the book, there's no way he did all that. And he did 10 times that. You can't believe it. I mean, this guy's life story and his criminal career is shocking and fantastic. Like, I don't mean fantastic good.

I mean like fantastical to an extent that every time I sit down with him, and he and I became close friends. We talk almost every day. And stories he tells me, he had a memory thing when he was in prison. and he had a heart attack. But when you refresh his memory, he'll tell your story. You're just like, Miles, I wrote a book about you. Why don't you tell me that?

Right. Then, you know, so he's the outlier. But every other time, I promise you, it's money involved. Because if it wasn't about money, they would be stealing things. They wouldn't be going after the most valuable stuff all the time, right? They would be stealing things that, you know, some collector wanted or whatever. It's not that. It's a money motive.

Well, I mean, you would think that they do some research ahead of time to realize that these are bad objects to steal because you just can't get rid of them. You can't get rid of them. But you know a lot of guys like this, right? They're not researchers. Yeah. And we talked about that beforehand. How many times did these people who are going to kill their wives go on and Google and Google Google. How to dispose of a body?

How long can I keep a body in a trunk before it starts smelling? Right. And then two days later, they kill their wife. And then the cops go, let me look at your Google search. I think you might have had something to do with this. And it's like every, there's a thousand cases that have been solved like this. There's hundreds of documentaries you'd think at least once you would, one of these guys would watch one doc that would say,

maybe I shouldn't do that. Exactly. And, you know, well, thank God they're stupid. Yeah. Right. But, you know, but on the other hand, I think people would be shocked to know how many hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of unsolved homicides there are out there. You know, there are lots of people out there who've killed people and got away with it.

You know, we just know of the, the bigger stories, but there's lots of guys that, you know, they find dead in shady part of town, and no one ever goes to jail for it. It's horrible, but it's true. I was just talking to a Boston police officer whose case was, I'm sure you haven't heard of this, but it's big in Boston, this Swedish nanny, who came to Boston as an O'Pierre, and a few months later, she was out, you know, she was from Sweden, she was out with friends at this club called Zanzibar in Boston, and the last time anybody saw it was 3 o'clock in the morning and then the next morning a guy's going through a dumpster

looking for cans and bottles and they find this garbage bag and in the bag is her torso and they never found her bottom half ever and they have no idea who killed her and no one's gone to jail for this. All the cameras, all the... 1994. Oh, 94, okay, I'm sorry, I thought

this was recent. Did she say 94? If I didn't, forgive me, I thought, I did. Okay. But yeah, so, you know, even like 2004, night vision cameras and such weren't easily accessible because of price. Nowadays, everybody's got this beautiful, high-deaf night vision on their ring camera. Yeah.

You drive through my neighborhood every door, every doorna, or whatever, every doorbell is going and going. Absolutely. And five years ago, everybody will have a license plate reader on those doorbells. And you'll know who drove by. and but yeah that girl's homicide and that's just one of thousands out there that have gone unsolved you know it's it's frustrating to think about the families who who never saw justice for their daughter in that case how how did you come across or start when did you first approach miles yeah okay miles so in my book

I talk about how for 10 years I didn't bother talking to him because he's so famous for what he's done that I felt, you know, if the Gardner Museum investigator talks to Miles Conner, they're going to try to make a media thing out of it. And I can't get people to talk to me if they know the media gets involved. You know, so I spoke with so many people that,

you understand this, you know, you can't just go talk to someone's widow and then let the whole world know she helped you. Right. You put her in danger. Right. So I waited on Miles, and I knew, I felt like he had told everything he could tell.

But as I was doing the investigation, I started noticing everybody whose name came up that had some level of credibility to it were spokes. And Miles was at the hub. And I said, well, I have to talk to him. I should meet him. And I got in touch with someone that knew him. And that person called Miles' best friend. I got him out Dottily, who's a straight shooter, a big success in the music industry. And they said, yeah, Miles would meet with you, Anthony.

if you will be in a documentary about him. I said, sure, I don't care. Museum allowed me to do that. And I met with Miles in Braintree, Massachusetts, had a hotel. And when he walked in, it's one of those love at first type things. He and I are at this,

the complete opposite ends of art protection. But there's some like Kismet where, you know, he's the person in the world I want. want to talk to and I am that for him. You know, it's like, you know, if you're a pitcher, you want to talk to a really good hitter, right? Because you want to understand what they're thinking when they're at the plate and vice versa.

And we just started talking and up, but the first thing he said to me, and maybe he was, you know, pushing my buttons, but he said, you know, I think those Gardner paintings, it's a shame they're not home now they really should be. You know, and that's how you, that's how to, pull up my heartstrings. We're on the same.

You and me, we're kindred spirits. We want the right thing here. Exactly. We want the same thing. But he really does. You know, I believe, as the other, I would say last month, we did an interview for ABC. And they asked Miles, he said, I'm sitting next to him with Al, and they said, they asked him what they thought, he thought of the Louvre heist.

He said, well, it's a little garish for my taste to smashing a glass of this thing. I might have more class. They were more stylish, which is true. And they said, what heist didn't you do? What, what heist do you wish you did that you did not do? And he said, the Gardner heist. And they said, why? He said, because they'd have their paintings back by now.

And it's true. And he would steal art like that. The goal was always to give it back for money, for ransom, for get out of jail free, that sort of thing. The stuff he stole that he kept were samurai swords. and he's got an obsession from childhood with samurai swords. And over his lifetime, he's collected tens of millions of dollars worth the samurai swords. Yeah, I think I've seen this documentary.

Do they talk to, do they have the samurai swords in there? They show them? Yeah, he's part of a documentary where they talk about his samurai swords. He's probably one of the world's top ten experts on swords. He knows it's scary how much he knows about them. That's the sort of thing he would steal to keep for himself. sorts, but the rest was take it, use it, give it back. Yeah, I was just saying the paintings in the gardener heist, like, you would think that somebody could just say, hey, I bought this old house

and I came across these paintings and I realized what they were and I'd be happy to tell you where they are and how I found them, how I came across them for the reward money. And then, because all you have to do is say, you know, I got this house and they were. up in the attic, and the former owner is going to be like, I have no idea. My mother's owned this house for 30 years. Mom, how did you? She's deceased, or we don't know. Maybe it was a family friend.

They're going to figure, but either way, I get the reward. I found them. I recognize it. I want the reward. You think there would be a way, a mechanism to get those back without connecting that person to the actual robbers. But like you said, the robbers. I understand the robbers are gone, but while they were alive,

you would think that they could have put that plan. in motion, especially before cell phones, right? Because now it's like, no, there's no way. You've called me 45 times. They're very quickly, they're going to put together that we know each other. You would a Google Guard Museum. Yeah. But I will say this.

I think this will surprise you. So from my perspective, I'm a private investigator, working for a private institution. So, and the FBI goes along with this on many occasions. At least they have in the past. Somebody calls me and says, I have information about your paintings. I'm afraid to talk to you.

I'm afraid of getting in trouble. I'm afraid of my name being out there. And I will say to them, don't tell me your name. Have your lawyer call me. I'll deal with your lawyer. I don't want to know your name. We'll pay the reward to your lawyer. You'll never tell us who you were because I don't care.

It's what the painting's back. My job is it. For me, I hate to make this comparison because it's not entirely true. Paintings are not as important as children. but you have to imagine a child is kidnapped. And a guy says, I'm going to do anything in a case to get the kid back. I'll worry about who did it, but I want the kid back.

And that's how we feel about the paintings. I want the paintings back. I'll deal with your lawyer. He just wants to tell me who you are. I don't care. Tell me where the paintings are. And you'll get your $10 million. He can set up some escrow, coffee, or whatever, between you and him.

And that's it. And it's the matter. I really do believe we'll get them. I think what happens is eventually maybe someone watching this podcast will say, I'm going to trust this guy because he said my lawyer can call him. Right. And look at this book you wrote about Miles Connor who used paintings to get out of jail, right? You can do it.

And deal with me and we'll get the paintings back. It can happen and we can do it. And I wouldn't be saying it now putting my name behind it if it wasn't true. do you want to go over some of the things that Miles did? Yeah. Because he's definitely not out of this world. Yeah. He's definitely not going to say he had anything to do the Gardner.

No, and he did. Yeah, I know. I wish he did. I wish Miles Conner was behind the Gardner theft. Because I believe with my whole heart and soul that we'd have them back. And on the Gardner I had heard, I don't know if this is still true, that they had like where the paintings were, like they're just the frames. They have all the frames up.

Yeah, we put the frames back up. Some people, so Mrs. Gardner, when she built this museum in her will set, and it's the first of its kind, nothing can ever change. We can't take a little statue here that gets touched a lot and say, let's put it there. No, it has to stay here. And people think that's why the frames are still up, which is not. The frames went up five years after the heist. But they're up there as placeholders.

It's telling the public we're never going to forget these things. and it's the only thing that can ever be there is that Rembrandt or that Ramir or that DeGas, that Mane, because this is what she said, right? So we have the frames up there as a placeholder. You know, like a sign of hope, we're going to get our stuff back.

No museum in history has done what we have. From day one, we fought in search for our art as well. No one's ever done that before. So, you know, the frames in a way sign of our dedication and getting these great masterpieces back in on top of that we can't put anything else there if the Louvre said hey here's the Mona Lisa put it there we'd have to say no we can't right so if we did the entire collection would have to be auctioned in the money given to Harvard have you

ever been to John and Mabel a Ringling Museum the Ringling Museum it's in Saras I spoke there I think I spoke there before. And I know that we had an exhibition of their stuff at our museum. It's amazing. They have a great collection. Yeah. Yeah, they have like the largest collection of, is it, oh shoot, what are the Ruben? Ruben, what is the Rubenesque figures? Oh, I believe that. Yeah, yeah, they've got these, and they're massive like paintings and tapestries. And yeah, they, they, obviously, they have just tons of stuff. Anyway, but that- They have these, um, Kassone. So it, in the, it,

you know, marriage chest or hope chest. And hundreds of years ago, the Italians would have these things called Cassone, which was like a marriage chest. They're really ornate. And on them, there'd be panels that were painted by incredible artists. And sometimes you see those panels are out now and they're on people's walls. But Ringling has those, too, and they're beautiful. Yeah, it's amazing the collection.

And then the house, I don't know if you were there. Did you ever go to the house? I've seen it. Yeah, absolutely. It's beautiful. Completely read. I mean, it's, yeah, it's, it's amazing. Like the bathrooms and the whole thing, all in marble, and it's, it's amazing.

Actually, the, the movie, great expectations with Ethan Hawk when they redid it with Ethan Hawk. That was filmed there. No kidding. Yeah. Yeah. When it was still in disrepair. So it looks old and beat up. Yeah, you couldn't really do it now.

This is Haversham's place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a great movie. I should watch that. I'm going to, I should watch. That's a movie I need to make Jet, my wife watch. Colby definitely didn't see it. Colby's not watching it.

Colby's a lost call. I'm so disappointed in Colby. Hold on. We are watching great expectations, period. That's a movie, period. Tonight, period. Remind me when I get home. Sorry.

I'm sorry. My wife and I are going to have to watch that now. It's great. It's great. Yeah, I mean, for, you know, a real. remake or, you know, an adaptation. It's a great adaptation, right? All the great actors in it. Wait, is, uh, we're at the Palo?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Robert Deereo's in it. Oh, that's right. It's amazing. Before he got all political, weird. Oh, God.

It's so hard to watch your movies now. I don't want to know your politics. Like, we go to a concert. Don't talk about politics. Do you know, I always say, do you know why? Do you know why I don't give my opinion on the stock market? Because I don't know shit about the stock market. You know what I'm saying?

Like I'm, I like to talk to people. Not a stockbroker. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. That's it. Like, don't, nobody cares. Nobody's none of your business. I went to see, I've seen YouTube play a bunch of times.

Last time I saw them play, they started talking about politics. Like political figures. Yeah. They always talked about causes, but I was just like, that's it. I don't want to hear it. All right. I have no interest in your political opinion. Bruce Springsteen, I used to listen to it.

I don't want to hear it. Even if you agree with me, I don't want to hear it. I want you to play music. Don't preach to me about who I should vote for. I don't care what you think about that. All right, so Miles. Miles. What are some of the more interesting height?

I could tell you 7,000 stories. He really likes Miles. Yeah, I do. Really? She does too. Okay. She does too. The first time she met him in person, there's this famous picture.

When I give talks, I use slides, right? Right. The last slide, I always talk about his charisma. And the last slide, there's a picture of the day that Stephanie met Miles. And it's me. I always have to stand there like a random sock. And she's over here with her arms around Miles Conner because he's so, he's got this charisma. But he, I really like.

This is how I want you to talk about me. Yeah. When you're hanging out with your. buddies, you and Molly are hanging out. This is how you need to talk about me. I do. I say, I tell people, like the way Matt is on camera when he tells that story, when the camera turns off or you're outback, he's going to tell that story with the same enthusiasm. Yeah, yeah. I get excited. Well, he didn't have a lot in common. You know, he, from completely different spectrums. Yes, but he was a rock star. I wasn't a rock star, but he was a

rock star in Massachusetts, a huge one. He was a huge local. music figure who had a big career ahead of him. And I was in a band, so we both like guitars. Oh, you mean a real rock star? He was a real rock star. I thought you meant like, you know, like a celebrity. Like, oh, you're a rock star. Everybody knows Miles Connor. Okay. He was a rock star on stage. He was playing rock and roll before the Beatles came to America. He was huge in Massachusetts. It had, so his best friends since they were teenagers as a guy named Al Dottily, Al played bass for him, but then saw he could make a lot more money in the sound end of concerts. You have to remember, this is, when these guys emerged, this is the beginning, before there were even arenas.

There were no arenas in America, right? Providence Civic Center, these different arenas didn't exist. Miles was playing at clubs. Al comes up with this sound thing, and he becomes the sound guy. He was with Dionne Warwick, who was like Taylor Swift of her day, Frank Sinatra, all these different bands. He was driving the RV when the Rolling Stones

got the Janice Soprano has it, the tongue logo. He was there when they were presented with that. Like he's the man. He could have made, he was constantly trying to get miles

to stick with the music but he kept getting arrested. Stealing stuff. Not just art too. He wrote at least 13 banks he can remember and he never walked away from a bank heist with less than 130 grand.

And this is in the 60s. Insane. Yes. They don't, they, on average, I think it's, what, 3,500 bucks or something like that? Exactly. And he would come away with 130, 140. He's going in the vault. Yes.

And his thing was, one of his favorite ones was he would watch the place time when Brinks was either coming or going, money's all bagged up. And so he knew when the truck was going to arrive and they'd go in there and take the bags of money. So he was stealing all kinds of stuff. Can I tell that Anthony Curseo? story? You know who Anthony Curcio is? Curseo?

Curseo. Anthony Curseo. That sounds familiar. Anthony cursus. The short version is Anthony watched. Anthony's, Anthony was in real estate. He was flipping houses. 2007, 2008 financial crisis hits. He's holding multiple mortgages. He's losing everything. He's got a wife, a couple daughters. He decides it's going to rob a bank. This is the short version.

He watches Bank of America. deliveries of money. It's just coincidentally, by the way, but I like this part. Tartt gets passed. And when they start sending out the money, he thinks he's about, he's been watching this Brink's truck. He thinks he's going to hit it and is going to have like $100,000. It ends up having like $350,000.

But he's watching and he's thinking, when I grab this money, he doesn't want to use a gun. so he decides he's going to go with bear mace he even maces himself by the way just see how bad this is he goes it's bad this guy is going to hit the ground he ain't getting up so he's going to he decides he's going to mace the guy grab the money take off he's going to jump in a channel this is in a Seattle Washington he's going to jump on in the channel between this not far through the woods and take a you take a an inner tube they called him a DB tuber and to get down into another area And anyway, the point is, is that he watches it. He thinks, yeah, but the first thing that's going to happen, they're going to be calling for me.

They're going to be saying, hey, it's a guy with this described like this and this. He's like, the cops are going to come. I'm going to be running around. I'm going to get caught. How do I not get caught? And he says, I got it. He puts an ad in Craigslist for the Clean Up Seattle Foundation, paying $22 an hour. It's just like 15 years ago for the Clean Up Seattle Foundation.

he needs you to go get a broom sweeper and the little collector, right, you know, to clean up garbage, wear blue jeans, a white long-sleeved shirt, bring a face mask. He sends links to all the places you can go to get them, and a baseball cap, and meet me at the corner here. So 30 people apply. He tells five of them to meet here, five of them to meet here, five of them to meet here, five of them to meet right. five of them to meet right around the bank. And when they show up, he said, now if the supervisor, supervisor should be there by 10,

because that's when the truck shows up. If he doesn't show up right away, just go ahead and start. He'll show up within 30 minutes or so. He shows up. He's one of the guys. And he starts to sweep in there, picking up a little garbage, little trash here.

Like, where's the super? I don't know. They said he'll come. Let's start. They're waiting and waiting. And he's making sure he's pretty close to the bank. So you've got 30 of these, about 20-some. So I think it's like 21, 22 guys spread out around the bank.

And the brink truck shows up. And he hits the guy, grabs the bag, takes off, jumps in his inner tube, goes down the street, jumps out, throws the stuff into a car. He's got a friend that's waiting for him. He jumps in the trunk. He searches through to see if there's any die packs or anything. There's nothing. Drives four blocks away.

He's now like a mile away and goes to a real estate. state jumps out, walks into a real estate agency, I'm sorry, a title company. And he's there walking in, which he's a real estate agent. He's been to this agent, a title company forward walks in and says to them, like, hey, I closed on this thing, you know, this house two months ago. I never got a cup. My client needs to copy the HUD. They're like, oh, sure, no problem. Anthony. We'll get it. And just then you could hear the sirens. And he goes, do you hear that? And they're like, yeah. And he's like, oh, that's crazy. That's his alibi. But I was, I was in the title company. We've been talking. We've been talking for a couple minutes when I heard the sirens.

But regardless, yeah, so gets away, like $350,000. How'd they catch him? The Craigslist Ed? Why in the ointment? While he was watching the bank, there was a homeless guy sitting in the alley, and the homeless guy was watching him and kept seeing this guy pull up in a car and watch the bank and would watch the, would watch the Brinks truck, and then leave, and would make notes and make this, and he said to himself, I think that,

guy's going to rob this bank. And so he writes down the tag number. And so Anthony also, when he took off running, he lost the mask. He's got his DNA, but he's not in the system. So the guy in the alley goes to a local worker, city worker, and tells him, hey, you know that bank? They got robbed. The guy's like, yeah. He's a homeless guy. He's like, what do you want? You know the bank that got robbed? Yeah. I know who did it. I got the bank to got robbed. Yeah. I know who did it. I got the bank. their tag. Get out of here. Get out of here. That guy ends up, does end up making a report to a police officer. I says, listen, man, I'm just going to tell

you, because this homeless guy came up. He said this. Cops, the FBI goes, and they go to where homeless people are. And they said, do you know anybody who's got a little dog? You mean, Jimmy? Yeah, Jimmy lives at this bus on the corner, such and such in the woods. And you go, they go to the bus. Jimmy walks out and says, I've been

waiting for you guys. I got the tag number for the bank robber. They watch Anthony. They get his DNA. They put it together. Boom, he's done. What a great crime, though. The Thomas Crown Affair. He's got the guys. The guys with the hats.

Yeah. It's amazing. And then he's upset. Anthony is upset that they called him a DB tuber. By the way, he's very upset about that. And here's why. Because what he first did was he got a wave runner. The problem is while he was doing a run-through to see how quickly he could get to the title company,

he was racing down the little channel and there was a rock. that hit the thing and the fiberglass cracked and it and it sank. So he thought the only thing he could really do in such short notice was get an intertube. Oh, okay. You know, he would have had a much cooler name had that rock not been. Very, he's very, he was always very, very upset because people were like, hey, DB Cooper, or DB Tuber. Like, hey, don't, don't stop. Don't, don't do that.

Don't do that. I could have had a cool nickname. Look at me now. Oh, my God. Yeah. Great. I mean, you know, you're in prison long enough. You hear just a ton of these guys' stories.

Oh, yeah. And he was in GQ. That article was written. That story was about him? Yes. GQ wrote a story about him and it was sold, you know, it was an optioned a couple of times. I never did anything with it. But it was amazing.

He got out. Anthony got out after, I don't know, like, I think he got like six years or something because it was, you know, It was nonviolent. I understand that there was the mace and everything, but you didn't use a gun. Right. So he got like five, six years.

And he got out and he started, he had written books for his children when he was locked up. When he got out, he didn't know how to get the books bound. Like he had called several places and they all want like, oh, yeah, we'll do it $12 a book. And you got to buy $1,000. And he's like, fuck, well, you're insane? So he realized. like, you know what, Amazon will do it for you.

Right. So he uploaded it to Amazon to get a book made and he made it go live and a few people started reading the books and then somebody got one of the books and they liked them. You know, they started to read them. So he started producing the books, ended up

entering the book in a contest for kids and it became in some football player or something. and came out and said, this is like, this is the best book out there. And so, and it blew up. He makes, making tons of money doing that. So they're kids books.

Kids books. Oh, I thought you meant like he wrote about himself for his kids. No, he wrote kids books. No, wrote kids books about your daddy is in prison and lots of other things, you know, sensitive subjects. But yeah, a great guy. And then he opened up a baseball where you know how you have baseballs, like you sign baseballs and stuff. opened up a baseball thing where he was buying and selling baseballs. Dangerous.

And, you know, and so you can get certificates and, you know, they're different grading systems. And so he would buy like a five or a two that was really close to a three. Yeah. And then he would buy it and he'd get it re-certified or something because it was, he felt it was off. And then the difference between buying like a two and a three or a four is like seven grand. Yeah.

So he's buying one for 2,500. He can now sell it for 12,000 or whatever, you know, whatever the price is. It's a huge jump. And he starts doing that. And he ends up getting FBI investigation gets launched and he gets busted. And I'm pretty sure he's going to trial in like a few, like in a month. Like in February, maybe. Yeah.

What is it? I'm looking at the, you know, United States Attorney's Office article. And this was in 2024 and there is no sentencing. And I haven't found a sentencing on that. What, he pled guilty? No, there is not a sentencing. It's just like the breakdown of. Yeah, no, no, he's going to trial.

Yeah. I don't think he didn't plead. I think he's going to trial because he's saying that it's a complete bullshit case that this is all. I'm doing the same thing that these other huge companies do, and they're the ones that got the FBI on to me because they don't like anybody, any competition. But he's got a whole thing. He's going to trial. Wow. This is, as soon as you said that line of business, I'm like, oh, boy, he can't.

He can't. I knew it. It's hard to help yourself. sure. You know, if you can learn that Joe DiMaggio, like the gangsters in Providence, there were guys that would spend all day signing things, Mickey Mantle, you know, signing Joe DiMaggio. I have a Joe DiMaggio, but I always wonder, you know, Joe DiMaggio or is this, you know, I don't know. Anthony.

Yeah, so that's a quick, that's a quick side note. One of the articles is counterfeit Pokemon cards, a $2 million scheme, and a getaway by Intertube, is the title. of one of these, I guess they're mixing both the stories, one of these articles. Interesting. He should write his own story. All right, let's keep going. Oh, so he was a huge rock and roll figure in Massachusetts.

This is famous DJ in Massachusetts. He was on for decades. And when my book came out, he wrote this thing, saying if Miles had stayed with music instead of crime, he'd be, right now we'd be talking about him as one of the five great music figures of all time in American history. He was unbelievably talented, and he was at the forefront of rock and roll. Couldn't stop stealing things.

Why? You always say money, money, but you didn't say with him, it's different. I asked him that one time. In fact, I said to him now, it was like, Miles, you know, you could live, you know, he lives a humble life. He keeps a low profile. He's like, but you could live in like the nicest apartment in the city if you sold just one of your swords. and he turned to me and said, Anthony, there was a thing called collecting. And he just, that's his thing.

He can't help it. He would rather go without dinner for a week than give up one of these swords. And that's the first time he and I, so the first day I met him at the end of our meeting, he turned to me just before he was leaving, he said, do you know, do you know anybody at the Met? And I said, some people, but not close. He said, well, there's this Dr. Ogawa who comes every year from Japan

and he looks at their samurai swords, and I'd like him to look at mine. Do you think you could line that up? And I said, well, Miles, you know, you stole some stuff from the Met. That'd be hard. They may be holding some resentment there. Yeah.

So he said, okay, did I? I said, yeah, you did. Well, how about the MFA? He comes to the MFA in Boston as well. I said, well, Miles, you stole a rembrandt from the MFA. Did they get it back? And other stuff do.

Yeah, and that's what my book is about. There you go. Right. There you go. So I said, but I do know a lot of people. I'll ask. And I asked, and they're great. The people over there are great.

And I spoke to the security director. It was wonderful. And she said, hey, I have a guy who wants to come meet Dr. Ogawa. Can you line that up? He's a collector. And she said, I might be able to. I said, I'll look into it. I said, it's Miles Connor.

Ooh. You know, well, well, will it help your investigation at the gardener? I said, it could. And it has. He has helped me, and she said, well, I'll try. And she did. She made it happen. So he pulls up to my museum, which is across the street from the MFA.

And he's bringing his swords, and he said he's bringing a gift for me. And he gives me these two framed illuminated manuscripts that he swears are not stolen. And on the back, he signed it, and he put, whatever you do, for God's sake, don't hang these. You know, when people could see him anyway. I'm like, where are the swords? So Al opens up the hatch on his SUV, and there's a rifle case. I'm like, oh, my God. And in the book I mentioned, you know, 30 years ago,

I would have run for the hills, Miles Conner, is there with a rifle case. But that's what he had a swords in. But still, I had across the street in Boston. It's very strict gun laws. I'm like, I got to cross this mean thoroughfare with a rifle case in Miles Connor, most legendary criminal in the city's history.

But I did. So we go over the MFA. one thing leads to another love, we bring him upstairs, and he meets this expert, and the guy's impeccably dressed, he's got all the Japanese manners, you know, the manners, the courtesy, the respect. Miles greets him in Japanese, and he starts showing him his swords, and the guy's like, this is a real collection. He even knew one of the swords Miles had, like he knew the sword, not the maker, the actual. He's got an incredible collection of swords and he will not give him up. And he, he, he, uh, he did steal the number of them. One night he went to the, he went to the Boston Children's Museum, uh, in the 60s. And, um, he would go,

and he's, he's a Mesa member. So he's a genius. And he would go and portray himself as Dr. Michael Joseph, an academic. And he could talk the talk to the curators. And they would bring him to their storage. So he goes to the storage at the Boston Children's Museum. He said, can I see your samurai swords? Because he knows they got a big donation. And they're the real deal. And he said to the curator, when will these be on display? I'd like to come back and see them. The curator said, oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Joseph. They'll never be on display. They're not part of, they wouldn't fit. They'll just be in storage forever. And Miles said, oh, okay. And then a couple of nights later, It's a shame.

He climbed up a drain pipe, broke a window, and stole those swords. No one was going to see them anyway. Right. He sees it. Right. And he loves them. So now and again, people will ask me, hey, what do you think happened to that sword at such and such a place?

And I'll say, well, let me ask. And Miles will say, I don't know what you're talking about. How dare you impugn my integrity? You know, and I get what he's really saying to me about the swords. but he just can't help it. That's what he loves more than anything. So everybody has something for him at swords. Are all of these in the U.S.?

Or is there in... Okay, nothing in Europe. Nothing. All here. More than 30 museums that he can remember. The first one is really telling because I keep talking about how he's different. It's not for money, right?

So he's 19 years old. His dad's a cop and a straight arrow loved by everyone police officer in this town of Milton. And in Milton, there's a thing called the Forbes House. He's a descendant of the Forbes family, blue blood, more money than you can ever imagine American aristocrat types. And it becomes a museum and there have some antique guns in it. Miles' father's a collector of antique guns.

He has a hundred or so. One night, Miles comes home. I'm sorry, Miles is home. His father comes home from his shift. And he's a nice guy, but he's a nice guy. he's really dejected that night. And they sit down for dinner and Miles notices something wrong with his father, it's not himself.

And he said, finally he says, what's wrong, Pop? And he said, Miles, you know, the chief called me in and asked me if I took those guns from the Forbes house. And Miles is like, I can't believe. He said, well, it wasn't the chief. It's the family, the Forbes family insisted I'd be questioned. And Miles, like, they impugned my father's integrity. He couldn't believe it.

He saw the affected hat on him. So a few nights later, he went to the Forbes house and stole everything for revenge. He went there with the van they used for his band. He broke in at night, and he took everything. He didn't even have a plan for what to do with it. He went to his ex-wife's house and said, they're hide these for me. And she freaked out.

She put a bunch of them back on the lawn at the Forbes Museum. And he got his friend Al to go get the rest. Al didn't know. They were stolen goods. He just, oh, my friend, Miles, got a bunch of aces. swords and collectibles. But that's why he robbed it. Then the next robbery, he went to the Meade Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, which is a college town, very liberal.

It's a college. There's UMass Amherst and it's Amherst College. And Miles was going out that way. It's a western part of the state because he was going to case of bank he was going to rob, not far from there. And on the way there, because he loves art, he said, I think I'll stop by the Meade Museum. just check out the collection. And he did. And it's smallish.

And as he's walking around, he sees there's an office with a painting, a Dutch painting, and he likes Dutch art. And he sees it. And he goes in the office, and he's just looking at it. And the head of the museum, I guess he was in a restroom. He comes in and he says, what are you doing in my office? And Miles said, I'm sorry, sir. I just know it's this painting.

Is that over at Flink? And the guy says, this is my office. Get out of here. He yelled at him. And Miles said, I'm sorry. And he yells at him. Again, Miles leaves, takes in the rest of the museum, goes in cases the bank, comes back to Boston,

gets his henchman and said, change of plans. They go to the museum and they rob the museum because the guy disrespected him. And he stole three paintings, including the one that was in the guy's office. Not for money, but because he went there and this guy treated him that way. He stole his art.

And that's his life. That's, you know, it's never because, hey, get a lot of money for this. And if he did steal some stuff, horrible, not excusing it, but he would steal it to get the money to buy more swords. Right. So he's a unique character in history. There's no one like him. It's a terrible thing, in my perspective. I mean, I spent my life protecting it. I don't think it's good. But as a person who investigates it and studies it, it's fascinating, right?

So you meet this guy, I write this book about him with all these stories about him and Al, his friend. The first time I have lunch with them after the book is done, a week maybe, sits down, and he goes, did I ever tell you about the time I chased a DEA agent with a samurai saw it? Oh my God, you should have seen this guy run. Like, Miles, why don't you tell me that? Right. I was writing the book.

And five minutes later, he's going, you know, Susie, his late girlfriend, Susie and I were having lunch with Pablo Escobar. And I'm like, you didn't tell me, you know, Pablo Escobar. Oh, yeah, I used to dabble in the importation of South American. Anthony and, you know, so you can see why it's, well, look what you do for a living, right? These stories are riveting. Yeah, I was going to say, Colby and I could tell you how many times somebody will, we'll interview somebody and then they'll leave and then on the way to the airport or driving,

they'll call up or start texting. I can't believe, I forgot to tell you about the time that, you know, it's, it's, it's, It's difficult. Well, these guys have the colorful lives. Yeah. It's out. And that's why people like true crime, I think, you know, because you're an average citizen, God bless them and thank God for them.

They go to work every day. They come home. They have dinner with their wife and kids, hopefully. And they, you know, they do their stuff. And then it says the same thing tomorrow. Yeah. Right. But now on the way to work in that traffic, they can listen to stories like these or when you're

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They pulled up beside us. And cleaner storytelling. You'll see these cases like never before. Subscribe now to our brand new documentary channel where every story takes you deeper, into the criminal underworld that we know you crave. Yeah. It's this escapism. Yeah, they can sit on, they can work their job on the forklift and listen to a couple

of podcasts. Right. And we hear that all the time. And this is what we were telling people is that they can get to vicariously kind of live through your experiences. And so we tell everybody like, slow down. Don't, you know, I was, we always get the guys that like, yeah, yeah, so I ended of getting arrested.

And so when I got to jail, you're like, whoa, how did you get arrested? And then the cops arrested me. Did they knock on the door lightly and ask you to please come down? Oh, no, no. I came home and there were six cars. Right. So the guy on the forklift has never been arrested. If at all he was arrested, it was because it was a DUI where he was questioned for selling pot in high school.

It was silliness, you know. He doesn't know what that's like. And so we make it, we tell everybody like, slow down, take people through it slowly because that's what they want to know. why, you know, why did you plead guilty? Well, what happened at the last minute was, you know, that sort of thing. So, it's fun. You know, people love, say, CSI or these, I don't watch these shows, but you know what I mean, right? These procedurals.

And why do they watch it? Because it's escapism, right? But when they have the true crime, I believe fully that these true crime stories are far more interesting than what Hollywood comes up with. Hollywood couldn't come up with Miles Conner. Yeah. No, Holly, and the thing is Hollywood would destroy the story anyway, if they do it. They'll ruin it.

make it this, I'll have to, you know, what's the current political climate? We have to include that. We have to have a love interest. No, you don't need these tropes, right? These real stories are completely fascinating. And that's what I get out of this friendship. That's what I used to have with this friendship with Miles. But now it's like a genuine friendship.

You know, we talk about music and Roy Orbison was his favorite. And when Roy Arbison would come to Boston, you come in this big van. and he's a nice guy, but you just leave him alone. He doesn't want to be bothered. But when he come to Boston, he wears Miles Conner. And a lot of these acts would come to Boston, and they'd want to meet him. So his first, he's like 17 years old.

He's a kid. His first show he opened up for first was Dave Clark 5. And you might not know him now, but Dave Clark 5 was the first band to knock the Beatles off the number one spot. I mean, they were huge. And here's a 17-year-old kid. from Milton opening for them, fearless.

And you know a lot of these guys. They don't have that nervous gene. You know, they don't get nervous. They don't get worried. I asked him, you know, when you're in the back of, so what happens with the Rembrandt painting, he gets in that trouble and he talks in the FBI arrest him

with these Wyatt paintings. Yeah, I was going to ask. When does this guy ever get arrested? What's going on? Yeah, he got arrested. He kept getting off, right? He would keep getting out of it. Right.

One time he escaped from a prison. in a jail, a county jail in Maine once, he carved a barrow slope into a shape of a gun and used shoe black. I mean, this literally happened. At the jail now, the gun is in a frame. He got out of jail with it. The James Dean, not James Dean. Dillinger.

Yeah, sorry, John Dillinger. But that's supposed to be a myth. Yeah. Miles really did this. This thing is on the wall at the jail now. So he kept getting out. And when they got him with the Wyat's his time. was the feds. And I talked to the agent that did it. They put him in the back of the car,

and he leaned in. He goes, we got you now, Connor. Let's see you get out of this one. And he just looks over and says, well, just you watch me. I said, were you nervous? And he just looked at me. I'm nervous. So he gets arrested and booked, and then blah, blah, blah. They release him. And he goes to see the head of detectives for the mass state police guy named John Regan, who's a friend of his dad's. And he says, you know, I might know where some stuff is if I can help me with this case and John Regan said, not this time, Miles. He said, it's going to take you a Rembrandt to get out of this one. This was when I happened to have a Rembrandt.

He went and stole it based on that. I thought he'd already stole it. No, which is, think about that, right? So I always tell people this, when that detective said that to him, he meant it like a dad saying to his kid, ah, you got a better chance of me buying your Ferrari than buying you that Ford. You're not getting a car. He meant it as an exaggeration, you know?

Not, but that's not what you say to Miles Connor. Right. The minute he walked out of there, he said, I'm going to steal a Rembrandt. And that's what he did. He went to the MFA. He went in the daytime, and he did essentially a smashing grab. But the heist, and I hope people get the book, because, again, I'm a guy who's an expert in an art heist, right?

And I've studied them all. How they're done, every aspect of an art heist is interesting to me. And I have a database to study them. And now with AI, I can put the database in AI and really analyze it. But if you take Miles's heist from that moment to when the painting comes back, nothing in history even comes close to the genius from Miles stealing it to get out of jail to his friend Al coming and saying, because now Miles is in jail, everyone knows he must have stole it, but he hasn't been arrested for it.

No one knows what the painting is. Everybody's going to his friend Al. Who's a legitimate business guy? The mafia is coming to him. Where's the painting? Mafia comes to him with a suitcase with $60,000 in it in 1975. And there's a lot more where this came from. We want the painting.

So Al's like, listen, goes to see Miles. We got to get this painting back because my family, you know, I can live like this. Miles is sitting there knowing Al is going to come to him and it's going to have to be Al who gives it back because he can trust him. Al comes up with this incredible scheme to return it without anyone getting hurt,

without anyone going to jail, and with the museum happy, and he pulls it off. And to those guys, they're telling you this story, well, I loved it. It's like you with things you've done. Well, I lived it, and here's what I did. Like you said, you know, oh, I get arrested and no,

when you look at this from here to here. So they turn in the painting and he gets the credit for, they let him out of jail? Because he had his lawyer tell the authorities, I might know where you can get that painting back. Right, right. I didn't do it. Yeah, yeah.

I know a guy. I know a guy. Yeah. I think I can get that painting back for you. MFA just wants a painting. Yeah. Right? And the feds.

Miles is just upset about this. That painting should be hung and viewed by the public. He's just as upset as the authorities. Just want to do the right thing. Yep. Well, in fact, even people help people. Well, when he called one of his guys, so when Miles was just a kid, he went. to Walpole, which was one of the toughest prisons in America,

maximum security, because he shot a cop, and a shootout in the rooftops in the back bay of Boston, right? So he's in prison, he's a kid, there's all these riots at Walpole, really tough prison. Because he's so smart and so tough, but he's five, six on a good day, he always says, I may be a small potato, but I'm tough to peel. He's the tough bastard.

He's 145 pounds. He's benched pressing 445 in prison, right? They all see this. They see he's a Mensa member. They elect him as their spokesman for these riots. And he kills it. He gets some conjugal visits. He gets some television.

He gets some Harvard professors to come lecture to them. So these guys are so loyal to Miles. When he has to do the MFA heist, he calls a friend of his, Billy Skinner. He goes, Billy, I need you to help me borrow a painting for a body. a month. And the guy goes, all right. Not like Miles, you know, okay. Everybody involved in the he's, okay, I'll do it, because he asked. And he's got the, that's why, when Miles is running rampant through the streets of Boston, stealing everything that's not nailed down, extorting

biker gangs, posing as DEA agents extorting biker gang. Woody Bulger, the Italian mafia, not once ever tried to shake him down for what he stole, ever. because they knew he had this gang of loyal, very, very bad men who would do anything for him. So he's doing all this stuff in Bulger. And a really interesting coda to that story is that when Miles returns that Rembrandt, who his friend Al, they don't use the FBI. They go to a federal prosecutor and the state police, and they get all the headlines. So there was an FBI agent named John Connolly.

Yeah, no, John Connolly is. And she's still in the street, and he's pissed off that Miles doesn't give up rats' ass about Whitey Bulger, and that Miles went around the FBI with his painting. So not long after, there's a thing called the Blackfriars massacre in Boston, where these guys went in and they shot and killed six people. And it's in the paper. Connolly said Miles Conner did it. Miles was nowhere near the place, right? But because Miles went around the FBI, Connolly hated him.

Right. And tried to set him, you know, set him up for things he didn't do. Yeah, Connolly was like a friend of Whitey Bulger who, you know, okay. I mean, yeah. I'm assuming. Is he the, well, he's not the car. No, he's the FBI agent. Yeah.

He's the FBI agent that is supposedly working with Whitey Bulger in the upper etchal, on the echelon program? Top echelon and former program. Yeah. But he's working for the Winter Hill game. Yeah, he's really working for him because they kind of grew up together. They remained friends.

And so he's really helping Bulger avoid these different investigations and basically stay on the street much, much longer. Oh, yeah. And allegedly telling him who had to go. Yeah, and also, I was going to say, and ultimately gave him information on a few different people that he ended up killing,

that Bulger ended up killing. And didn't he also give him the heads up that they were probably coming to arrest him at some point? And so he took off and was on the run for 13 years or 19. I don't know how long he was on the run. And then he, Connolly was convicted of murder here in Florida. Oh, yeah, the High Lie guy. Yeah, Roger Wheeler. Yeah.

And got life from prison. And then during COVID, said his health was very bad. He needed to be released to save his life or he's going to die. And they did. And he's still alive. Right. Yeah. Free man.

That's fine. It'd be all right. He serves a chunk of time. He did serve a chunk of time. Yeah. And he's disgraced forever. Yeah, yeah. If you're in Boston and, you know, mention the name John Connolly.

Yeah. He's probably sleeping on sharing a bedroom with his, you know, daughter's house or something. It's probably, it's a horrible existence, I'm sure. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. When you're not resting well, everything else feels harder. your focus, your mood, even your recovery. Ghostbed is here to help you fix that. They've spent decades perfecting how to build a bed that's comfortable, durable, and designed

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I'm wondering, what do you think? Do you think, because, you know, it was a big thing in the Whitey Bulger case, whether Whitey was really giving Connolly information or if he was just using Connolly. What do you think? I think it's both. A little bit of both. I know one of my closest friends, the guy named Brian Kelly, and he's one of the prosecutor, the whole Bulger gang with Fred Weishak. And these guys, I'll tell you. And I know FBI, I'm sorry, state police detectives who worked in that Bulger case.

And they'll tell you, no. He was, you know, Connolly was working for the Winter Hill gang. But, you know, Bulger was using him to get rid of the Italian mob. Right, but he was also giving him information. Because you saw Black Mass. Yeah. Bulger never gives him anything. You know, he never really gives him anything.

It's all Connolly. Yeah, that's the movie. Yeah, that's the movie. No, I understand. So he did give him a lot. So it's a really interesting thing. The guys that wrote the book Black Mass. which is a really good book, Boston Globe reporters.

They had written a book years before called Underboss about how the FBI took down the Enjulo family, the Italian mob, right? Connolly's big hero in that book. Because these guys didn't know that Connolly was getting this information about the injulos from Bulger. Okay.

So Bulger was using Connolly, willingly Connolly was being used to get rid of the Italians so that Connolly could, I'm sorry, that Bulger and Fleming could run the city. Right. Right. So it was the reason under boss, and you read this thing about these heroic, this heroic John Connolly is because John Connolly was getting it from Bulger and helping Bulger. Right. So when they write Black Mass, it's sort of like a redemption because that book has looked at now.

Like we didn't realize what Connolly was really doing. Both great books, though. It's an incredible thing because a lot of people still believe that Bulger was behind the Godner theft stealing these paintings. Yeah, I've heard that. It's ridiculous. Yeah, he did. He wasn't. I mean, you just have to say, again, Brian, prosecuted them, you're going to tell me these guys will talk about their complicity in 19 murders, but they're going to say, hey, don't ask me about that de Gauss sketch.

Right. You know what I mean? No. It's, they would have given the, they would give the Gardner paintings back in a heartbeat. I had also heard that in the Gardner theft, that the, that they believe that this, and this was in one of the docs or something, that, that they believe that one of the security guards was in you know in on it and that they had I guess very quickly afterwards he like quit the job and then within weeks he took off and you know

went somewhere whatever you know traveled or something what do you think of that well he passed away I think two years ago now here's what I'll say about that you know because he's a former employee what I will say is well firstly he did give his two weeks notice before the heist and he did break policy and protocol by letting the police in that night. And if you made a list of everything he did that night from A to Z, A to Z would point towards complicity. That doesn't mean he's guilty.

No. And he would say, I know it looks really bad. He would say that every time. But everything he did from A to Z was, it points towards complicity. Again, that's not enough to say he did it. I would also say that he would often tell things about, his polygraph that weren't true. He would tell a lot of things to the media that weren't true.

One time, there's a show on NPR called StoryCorps. And I forget how long it is. I don't really listen to it at all, especially since then. But I think it was the 25th anniversary of the Godner heist. They had him. And it's essentially someone just tells their story

for like 10 minutes. And his was, you know, hey, I was, the guy that let them in and it's haunted me my whole life and and story car got in touch with me he said hey we have the transcript of our interview with him uh would you review it and uh fact check it for us i said sure thank you for asking so they sent to me and i was like that's a demonstrable lie that's not true that's not true it's a whole host of things and uh they ran the story without any changes and i pointed out at least i'm when i tell you demonstrable lies um It was really disappointing to me.

It was a real education to me about how media works. I was going to say, were you were expecting, apparently you'd obviously say, you're not familiar with how the media works. That was probably a better story than the one, what you gave them. And going through and making those corrections would have ruined their story. And they can always say, well, this is what he said. Yes. So that happens a lot.

You know, the media gets things wrong. Maybe it's laziness. Maybe it's stupidity. combination of the two. One time the New York Times ran something about a guy who we investigated for a long time, a guy named Bobby Gentile in Connecticut. And when he passed away, they said

he's the last living link to the paintings. And I said, whoa, why did you print that? Who told you he's the last living link? Oh, I said, because no one's ever said that. That's not true. They look it up and they get back to me. He said, well, we wrote that two years ago, whatever. I said, okay, that wasn't true then.

It wasn't true now. But with the StoryCorps thing, what bothered me is they took the step to ask me to fact check it. Right. If they never asked me and they ran and I'd be like, okay, but they asked me. And I'm like, no, no, look, I can tell you, these aren't things that are my opinion. These are demonstrable lies. And they ran it anyway. I just say, I'm thinking about the Danny Jones is a podcast I did.

My first podcast I ever did. and when he published the podcast. So I was at one point, number one on the Secret Service's Most Wanted List. No way. Yeah. And so, you know, which it's a secret service. Nobody who did even know they have a list. Anyway, but I did the podcast, and when he put it out, the thumbnail said like,

FBI's, you know, most wanted fugitive or number one, fugitive, whatever. And I was like, yo, bro, I said, you put, said FBI. It was a Secret Service, not the FBI. Right. And he goes, well, one, he said, secret. Secret service is long. He said, and nobody really knows what the secret service is. They know what the FBI is.

And I went, yeah, but it's not accurate. He goes, Matt, he goes, there's no YouTube police. Nobody's looking at this stuff. It's just, it's entertainment. He said, you don't be so literal. You have to be. And let me tell you something. To this day, almost every one of these podcasts I do will say, FBI is most wanted.

Number one on the FBI is like, what are you doing? Like, it's populated everywhere. It becomes fact. Yeah. And then if you're right, someday. 10 years from now, someone's writing a book about you. And they write in it, he was number one in the FBI's Most Wanted list. Here's the references, YouTube show, dated, blah, blah, blah,

YouTube show. He was in Matt was even on it. So yeah, it's fact. And it becomes fact. Yeah. And it gets cited forever. And there's a lot of that. Yeah.

There's a lot of that. You know, and with investigations like the Gardner investigation, you have people that said, well, why don't you just release the info? Why don't you just give the public the info of what you know? The case file is something like 50 or 60,000 pages now. Just release it. There's an opinion journalist for the Boston Globe who says that to me. She's really harsh on me.

Just put the stuff out there. I'm like, you know how many people I've spoken to that I promised I would never release their name or what they said? You know, you think I should just release that? Oh, it's for the paintings. Well, do you release your sources? Do you just tell people your sources? It's different. You know, they, media always, yeah, they're rough.

They're rough. They're rough, man. I'm saying scumbags. You're like, well, there's some that are really good. You know, this guy at Mahoney in Connecticut, a woman named Michelle Murphy at the Boston Globe, the best prime reporter in the city's history, Tom Mashberg, I wrote a book with him,

and a few others. They're really, really good. So that's why you start to narrow down who you're willing to speak to. I spent years talking to Miles after knowing him for 10 years and hearing all of his stories, I felt that his story needed to be told accurately. It needed to be told from the perspective of, when I say accurately,

he didn't understand that he's the greatest art of he forever lived. But I told him that, he sat back in his chair because he doesn't spend time researching art heist. He did them. So I felt a book should be written about him from that perspective. So I decided to write this book called the Rembrandt Height. because when he stole this painting to get out of jail, he set this really important precedent

in the annals of art crime. And now you wonder, any time a painting is stolen and it's not recovered, is it being held as it get out of jail free card, like Miles Conner did in 1975? So I decided to write this story. And the bonus is, because I'm friends with Miles and Al, the two main characters,

I get it right from them. You know, they gave me all the time I needed, gave me access to their personal photos, and I could interview them at length because I'm with them anyway. And I got to speak to Miles many, many times, and he would let me record it. Even when the night before he was having open heart surgery

for the second time, he didn't know if he was going to survive. And he talked to me about what his will said. He read it to me. And you really get to know a guy in those moments, and I felt like this, if I'm going to write books about art crime, this is a book I should write. So I wrote it. I'm really pleased with it.

In fact, it was a few weeks ago, it was named one of the top 10 history books of 2025 by Smithsonian Magazine and by History.com. So I didn't set out to write a history book, but it's been successful as one. Do you have an audible? It's on Audible. It's on Kindle. It's available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, everywhere books are sold.

I need an audible. Got to have an audible. Yeah. Yeah. I heard the audibles good. It's hard for me to listen to somebody else speak as me because the prologue is in the first person. Right.

And I started to listen to it a little bit and hearing the guy saying my life story seemed weird to me and I stop. But people love the audible. He's really good. And that's key, obviously. So, yeah, I have all of those. And I'm really excited about having that book out there and they like it. You know, so when I finished it, Miles and I read it and they were like,

It's as if you live this with us. And as you know, when you write a book, it outlives you. You know, you and I will both be gone, but our books will be somewhere on some library shelf somewhere, you know. And there's a legacy involved with the two characters in it. Do you want to be accurate? You don't want to glorify what they did because it's a horrible thing to steal art. Art belongs to all of us. But people are complex.

They're not just the sum of all the bad things they've done. None of us are, thank God. So I hope people read the book and understand that complexity. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor. Hit the subscribe button and the bell so get notified of videos like this. Also, if you would like to buy the Rembrandt Heist, we are going to leave the link to Amazon in the description box.

The other thing is if you would like to follow Anthony, we're going to leave the links to his Twitter. his, I want to say stack book. What was it? Substack. You can go there, follow him. Thank you very much. I appreciate you watching.

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