[MSN] Find Whitey: the hunt for the man with a $1m price on his head. UK expert on the trail of godfather suspected of masterminding $350m art heist.

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Find Whitey: the hunt for the man with a $1m price on his head


UK expert on the trail of godfather suspected of masterminding $350m art
heist 

Sandra Laville in Las Palmas
Monday June 4, 2007
The Guardian 


"No, the legs are wrong. The walk is wrong. He'd be wearing a hat, and
sunglasses, always sunglasses."
Along the two-mile promenade of Playa de las Canteras, elderly men with
white hair and skin the colour of worn leather pass the time of day with
friends. Some walk purposefully along the beach skirting the surf line,
baseball hats pulled down on their heads. Others sit on benches smoking
cigarettes.

Secreted here, amid the sweep of hotels, facades of broken-down buildings
and surfers' haunts, is a British art crime investigator working under the
pseudonym Chris Roberts to protect his anonymity. Nearing 60, he is a loner,
with strong contacts in the criminal underworld and a reputation for finding
what he seeks. He is convinced he will know the man he wants when he sees
him. The legs will be distinctive, strong and significantly bowed, lending
an unmistakeable sway to the walk. The face will be chiselled, the arms
muscular despite his 77 years and the blue eyes hidden behind aviator
sunglasses. He will be carrying a knife.

For 12 years James "Whitey" Bulger has evaded capture. The violent and
feared godfather of the Irish mob in Boston, Massachusetts, Whitey fled the
US in 1995 after being tipped off by a corrupt FBI agent, John Connolly,
that an indictment was heading his way. With Connolly now in jail in the US,
Whitey, so named because of his slick of white hair, is wanted for 19
murders, violating the laws against organised crime, extortion, drug dealing
and money laundering, all committed from the early 1970s to the mid-80s.
Considered armed and extremely dangerous, he ranks in the top 10 of the
FBI's list of most-wanted villains and carries a $1m (£500,000) bounty.
In 12 years the FBI's Bulger taskforce has searched England, Ireland,
France, Italy, Thailand and Brazil for Whitey - the man on whom Martin
Scorsese is said to have modelled Frank Costello, played by Jack Nicholson
in the Oscar-winning film The Departed.


What might appear to be a search for a needle in a haystack has recently
focused on Spain. The US attorney in Boston, Michael Sullivan, will not
comment on the investigation but it is understood a Spanish arrest warrant
has been issued for Bulger and investigators from the justice department
have recently travelled to the Canary Islands in the hunt for him.

What brings Roberts, one of Britain's leading specialist art crime
investigators, to Gran Canaria dates back to 1990 in Boston, a city where
nothing moved in the underworld without the Irish godfather knowing about
it.

In the early hours of March 18, as Boston's St Patrick's Day celebrations
drew to a close, two thieves, dressed in ill-fitting police uniforms,
carried out one of the biggest art heists in history.

Thirteen paintings worth $350m - including Rembrandt's only seascape, The
Storm on the Sea of Galilee, The Concert by Jan Vermeer, Landscape with an
Obelisk by Govaert Flinck, five Degas drawings and a Manet portrait - were
stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The thieves handcuffed and bound the guards and ripped the canvases from the
frames, leaving the ragged edges of the masterpieces protruding from the
smashed glass and splintered wood.

The crime may have taken place 17 years ago, but the hunt for the paintings
continues. Many investigators believe Bulger was the mastermind. "Find
Whitey and you find the paintings," said Roberts.

Armed with tips from informants, Roberts treads the beaches of Gran Canaria
scanning the groups of old men in their 70s, watches the ferry port and sits
scouring hotel lobbies, a digital camera and a notebook in his pocket. "It's
like a painting, it tells you whether it's real or not if you know what you
are looking for and look closely," he said.

Roberts's success in recovering masterpieces for museums and private
individuals during his 30-year career belies the hard work and tedium of the
traditional gumshoe. Hunting for a fugitive requires good informants,
patience, instinct, tenacity and an ability to take repeated, crushing
disappointments. Investigators immerse themselves in the lives of their
subject in an attempt to get inside their minds. In Bulger's case the FBI
lists his predilections as walking on beaches, exercise, historical
buildings, libraries and a love of animals.

"He will be in a place away from the tourists, somewhere with a slightly
seedy edge, where he can walk along the beach unnoticed and have control
over his surroundings," said Roberts. "What he won't want is to draw
attention to himself. He is very proud of his physique, so will be keeping
fit. He has to be in a place where he can escape quickly, not some small
village where he would stand out and could be trapped."

Roberts is one of at least two British experts trying to crack one of the
art world's greatest mysteries. Other freelance bounty hunters are also
looking for the paintings, attracted by the $5m reward for the safe return
of the works.

Unlike most crimes, where the trail goes cold the longer the investigation
continues, when it comes to high-value art thefts, the years that pass make
a breakthrough more likely. "You are not looking for the thieves. It is the
handlers you want, the people who have hold of the art and have laid it down
to await further instructions," Roberts said.

Contacted last year by the US attorney in Boston, he has visited Spain and
the Canaries four times in his search. In October last year he believed he
had spotted the fugitive in a rundown part of Alicante, exercising in the
early morning on the seafront. "When I saw him I took pictures, and went
back and watched again. It was his walk that gave him away, I was convinced
it was him."

He took several photographs, contacted the lead investigator from the US
attorney's justice department in Boston and sent off the pictures. "It took
seven weeks for them to turn up in Spain," he said. A return visit by
Roberts during a wet, cold November drew a blank. "By then I think he was
long gone."

Accusations abound that the FBI and the US attorney's justice department
have been leaden-footed in the 12-year manhunt, fuelled by the history of
the mobster's relationship with the bureau. For nearly two decades Bulger
was a top-tier secret FBI informant and as such was given protection by his
corrupt handler, Connolly, from prosecution by other agencies, including the
police. The allegation is that the last thing many within the FBI want is to
find Bulger and stir memories of the rampant corruption within the agency in
the city.

As for the paintings, sources within the art crime underworld and the Garda
believe they have been laid down in a secret hideaway in the west of
Ireland, a result of strong links between Bulger's Irish mafia in Boston and
senior figures within the IRA leadership at the time.

"If Bulger is caught there is no need for those who hold the paintings to
hang on to them," said Roberts. "That is the moment you are likely to have a
breakthrough. At the moment it is not worth the lives of those holding the
art to do anything differently from what they have been told by the people
who are supporting Whitey's fugitive status."

A security source within the art world said the paintings may be used as a
bartering tool by known criminals. "Art thefts in general are often carried
out not for actual cash but for collateral for drugs or bartering your way
out of charges," said the source. "People steal art, store it away and hold
on to it. When they get into trouble, they use it as a means of trying to
get out of trouble."

It is known that before he fled America, Bulger travelled to Ireland, the UK
and elsewhere in Europe, leaving money and other possessions in deposit
boxes as a means of support when on the run. Scotland Yard became involved
in the case, the Guardian understands, when one of the many boxes deposited
by Bulger was found in the security vaults of a bank near Piccadilly Circus.
Inside, officers found $50,000 and the key to another deposit box in Dublin.
In Boston, the head of security at the Gardner museum, Anthony Amore,
believes the $5m reward will eventually attract vital information."There are
a number of investigations going on," said Mr Amore. "Primarily, the FBI has
the jurisdiction, and they are heading up the investigation into the theft.

"From our perspective I will walk over broken glass to get the paintings
back. We are optimistic. There are a number of very good people who are
investigating the theft and issues around it," he said. He went on to name
Roberts and another Briton.

But for Roberts the hunt ended in Gran Canaria, albeit temporarily, in
disappointment and a trail gone cold. His continued conviction, however,
that Bulger holds the key to finding the art comes as no surprise to museum
staff.

"He was the main crime boss in Boston at the time, he knew everything that
went on," said a museum source. "No one really knows what the FBI are up to,
they don't tell us, but his name certainly cannot be ruled out."

Today, the empty frames of the paintings still hang on the museum walls. A
notice next to the space where once Vermeer's The Concert hung reads: "On
the night of March 18 1990 thieves stole 13 priceless works of art including
The Concert and The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. Anyone with information is
asked to contact the FBI."

Mr Amore often pauses to stare at the empty frames. "We like to look at
those empty frames as place holders for our art," he said. "They are not
there to mourn the loss of the paintings, but to hold a place for those
important pieces which we are sure will one day be returned to the Gardner
collection."

Related articles: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2094678,00.html
01.03.2007: Prized works stolen from granddaughter of Picasso
03.02.2006: Mansion art haul may be Britain's biggest
02.02.2006: £20m art theft riddle solved in court
02.02.2006: Stealing beauty 
28.01.2006: Artful dodgers

In pictures: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2094678,00.html 
Missing masterpieces: a virtual gallery, by Jonathan Jones

Special reports: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2094678,00.html
Art theft
Crime

Useful links: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2094678,00.html
The world's most wanted art
Art Loss Register
Invaluable
Object ID: international standard for describing art
Sotheby's
Christie's
Metropolitan police
Swift-find: online registry of valuables
Carabinieri: searchable database of looted art (in Italian)