Gangster linked to unsolved art heist 30 years after his death

Donati was found in the trunk of his Cadillac having been stabbed repeatedly and had had his throat slashed.

Bobby Donati tried to sell a bronze eagle sculpture taken in the raid on Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner museum before his death a year later, retired appraiser Paul Calantropo revealed. The expert said he recognised it as one of the 13 items stolen — which also included Rembrandt paintings — and told the mobster it was worthless due to its infamy. He told Donati: ‘Jesus Bobby, why didn’t you steal the Mona Lisa?’

The pair never met again and a year later Donati was attacked outside his home in New England and murdered.

Calantropo said he believes the convicted robber and thief took the secret of the hidden loot to his grave. Two men dressed as police officers walked out of the museum with the $500m haul of art on March 18, 1990. It remains the biggest art heist ever on American soil. Those paintings were Rembrandt’s “Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” and Vermeer’s “The Concert,” which were among the 13 artworks taken in a theft that remains one of the highest-profile unsolved crimes in Boston history.

See ----->Last mobster tied to Boston art heist dies