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APPEARANCES ARE DECEPTIVE In March 1990, two thieves dressed in police uniform fooled staff at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston to pull off the biggest art theft in U.S. history. The pair gained entry at night by posing as Boston police officers and stating that they were responding to an emergency call. Once inside, the thieves handcuffed the two security guards and took them into the basement, where they were secured to pipes and their hands, feet, and heads duct-taped. The thieves made off with some $300 million in art, including works by Dutch masters Vermeer, Rembrandt and French painter Manet. The paintings remain missing. Now, 22 years on, the Gardner robbery remains the largest single property theft of all time. MONA LISA AIN'T SMILING It's a heist that helped create the celebrity status that Mona Lisa wields to this day. In August 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's enigmatic masterpiece was taken
-- brazenly -- from Paris' Louvre museum. Pablo Picasso was among those detained and taken in for questioning by investigating police. The Louvre mourned as it thought the painting had been lost forever. It took two years to discover the real thief: art historians say a Louvre employee called Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen it by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet and walking out with it hidden under his coat when the Louvre had closed for the day.
[Associated
Press;
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