Federal agents trying to solve the 22-year-old mystery of the biggest art heist ever swarmed the home of a reputed Connecticut mobster yesterday, seeking clues into the $500 million museum job.
Armed with a search warrant, haz-mat suits and ground-penetrating radar, the FBI squad besieged the home of suspected gangster Robert Gentile, who was arrested earlier this year on federal drug charges.
Prosecutors believe Gentile, 75, may have some connection to the sensational art heist at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, which netted some of the world’s greatest masterpieces, including works by Degas, Rembrandt, Manet and Vermeer.
Agents pored through Gentile’s suburban Hartford ranch-style home and closely examined his 1989 Buick Park Avenue in the driveway.
They also searched a shed behind the house.
But they focused on the back yard, where Gentile once had an in-ground swimming pool.
It’s now covered with dirt and grass, so the searchers used the radar.
In March, a federal prosecutor said the FBI believes that Gentile had some involvement with stolen property related to the heist, which could have sprung from the pages of a Hollywood screen play.
Two men disguised as police officers were let inside the museum through a security door in 1990.
Once inside, they tied up two security guards and secured them to pipes in the basement.
When the morning security shift arrived, the guards found their tied-up colleagues and discovered that 13 pieces of art were missing.
Gentile has not been charged in the art robbery and his lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, says his client does not know anything about it.