The Night the Art Ghosted Boston’s Gardner Museum w/ Jake Halpern and Jess McHugh

This week, Laci welcomes Jake Halpern and Jess McHugh (Deep Cover Podcast) to discuss Boston's 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist. Several works of art worth half a billion dollars were stolen, making it the biggest property crime in U. S. history, and it’s still unsolved, with the art still missing. There’s a $10 million reward on the table for any information leading directly to its safe return. Plus, Laci, Jake and Jess dig into Sarah Cavanaugh, who was convicted of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, forgery, and fraudulent use of military medals, after pretending to be a wounded veteran to steal more than a quarter‑million dollars meant for real veterans. Stay schemin’! Did you miss out on a custom signed Scam Goddess book? Look no more, nab your copy on PODSWAG Keep the scams coming and snitch on your friends by emailing us at [email protected]. CON-gregation, catch Laci's TV Show Scam Goddess, now on Freeform and Hulu! Follow on Instagram: Scam Goddess Pod: @scamgoddesspod Laci Mosley: @divalaci Jake Halpern: @jake.halpern.author Jess McHugh: @jessmchugh3 Research by Kathryn Doyle SOURCES https://people.com/gardner-heist-boston-lead-investigator-hopeful-11696747 https://www.gardnermuseum.org/organization/theft https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/isabella-stewart-gardner-museum-heist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPaAsvFU9Io Netflix: This Is A Robbery docuseries

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:47Laci Mosley?

  What's poppin', congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess, back with another installment of the podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Today, we have not one, but two real-deal journalists on the show. Okay, y'all know I love, yeah, I pretend to be a journalist, but these people really have degrees, okay? One has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, GQ, and more. Hello, credits. He is a bestselling author and winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. That, okay, not a Pulitzer winner. Oh, this is fancy. Let me set it up straighter.

• 2:24Laci Mosley?

  Now that I'm sitting up straighter, I will continue. The other writer and researcher, whose work has appeared in various national and international publications, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Time, and more. Woo, we just dropping all the big names on the floor. Can y'all hear them just clank, clank, clank? She wrote the book American On, which asks, what is the glue that holds us all together? Together, they co-host the podcast Deep Cover, a show about people who lead double lives, revealing their webs of deception. And Doug, why can't I read today, y'all? I swear to God, I can read. I'm not a part of that generation that can't read good.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  This happens to me all the time. I get it.

• 3:00Laci Mosley?

  It was a school for ants, but I didn't learn how to read there, okay?

• 3:06Laci Mosley?

  So their podcast, Deep Cover, is about people who lead double lives, revealing their webs of deception. Deception is beating my ass. And dark underworlds through interviews with federal agents and convicted criminals. Okay, convicts, okay? There's confidences in that word, convict, congregation. I am elated to welcome our first timers, Jake Halpern and Jess McKeer to the show. Hi.

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 3:32Speaker 04

  Hey.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  Thanks for having us. That makes us sound so legit.

• 3:34Laci Mosley?

  Oh, my God, you guys are too legit, too legit for my mouth to quit. And also, super catch of fragileistic explanation. No, this is amazing. Thank you both for being here and legitimizing my show even more. You are now tied to it. Whatever I do, you do. No, I'm playing.

• 3:55Laci Mosley?

  Well, we do always ask on this podcast, what is your relationship with scams? Do you love them? Do you hate them? Have you ever seen some ransom? It could literally be anything. Has one happened to you? And either of you can go.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Oh, Jess, Jess, you're definitely going first on this one.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  So Jake knows I came across this Sarah Kavanaugh, who's the subject of our podcast, because I've been working on this research for this book for many years, and I'm finally finishing the book proposal. So if there's any editors out there, please buy it. But basically, my kind of theory is that... Contemporary society has made it such that all women are forced into scam land, whether as victims, or con artists, or kind of debunkers like myself. And so, basically, I think in our world, there is no way not to scam and be scammed. Like, everything from kind of soul cycle nonsense and retinol serums up to Ponzi schemes and, like, you know, trad wifery.

• 4:54Laci Mosley?

  There's so many creams.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  A scam that you would fall for, even if you think you would not.

• 4:59Laci Mosley?

  Right, I lather myself in creams. I put some on today.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Jake knows this.

• 5:04Laci Mosley?

  It's gonna keep me beautiful, because I can't get old and nasty, because then the people won't love me.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  This is what I'm saying.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  Your skin looks amazing, actually, and it's funny, because Jess is obsessed with skincare, and she's, whenever we meet someone, she's giving the quick rundown of how she thinks their skincare is.

• 5:22Laci Mosley?

  No, listen, I have an LED red light mask. I don't know if it's doing a damn thing, but am I gonna put it on at night and look like a murderer? Absolutely. But, you're right, I would go a step further and say that I love the specificity of women, but I think too, like, it's just anybody of all genders now has been kind of forced into scams. And I love that you bring up trad wives, because that goes hand to hand with that retinol, because it's like, yeah, you didn't get any skills when you were young and fuckable, but then, and now you have all these kids, and then your man upgrades the wife, and now you're nasty and you're old.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  More ways to spend and lose money.

• 5:59Laci Mosley?

  And you've got kids, and it's like, you're none of those things, absolutely not. I'm not saying that trad wives are those things, but that's kind of the system, that scam system. So this is really fascinating to me.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Also, if you haven't had a trad wife episode yet, I think there needs to be a trad wife episode, because that is a scam.

• 6:13Laci Mosley?

  Yes, it truly is, for everybody involved. I don't think being a stay-at-home wife is not labor, and I certainly have seen it work. I know some people with very successful marriages who are still together, and their husband wasn't like, "Oh, you turned 42, it's Tampa, you're old."

• 6:29Speaker 03

  Goodbye.

• 6:33Laci Mosley?

  It can happen, and I hope that it does happen for these young girls. But you know, when something becomes a culture, that's when the scam has entered the chat.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, when I say try to, I mean more specifically like selling your organic pork through your Instagram storefront and also maybe some Mormon Christianity. I don't mean to malign stay at home moms, that's not who I'm talking about.

• 6:55Laci Mosley?

  Listen, I have watched, what's her name, Nora Smith? I watched her make a grape once in the oven and she looked like a supermodel. And I was like, this seems amazing. And she is really selling me something. I'm not lying it, because I know. But she is selling it.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  It's tempting and her voice is incredible. What can I say?

• 7:14Laci Mosley?

  Oh, so soothing. She says things I'm like, yes, I will give up my life. Yes.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Are you familiar with any of his Jake copper? And I somehow feel like this is not entering your Instagram algorithm.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  I'm drawn in by everything Lacey. No.

• 7:27Laci Mosley?

  I should be only making my own bread. What am I doing?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Although I do know that Jake is the only one in the kitchen in his household, as should the case always be.

• 7:39Laci Mosley?

  Listen, I love a man who can cook. Come on Jake, that gives you some snaps and some claps. We all need survival skills. I don't know why we think it's weird when little boys have kitchen sets. I'm like, do you think they're not gonna eat at some point in their life? Like, they do need to know how to do laundry and feed themselves and read. Bring back reading.

• 7:59Laci Mosley?

  Y'all can't read so much. It's starting to affect me. I feel like it's some kind of parasite because I could read before this.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  You should have heard me on our first takes of the first episodes. It was a mess, so don't even start it.

• 8:13Laci Mosley?

  Well, I'm six years in. I have no excuse.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  No, but you're improv-ing, which is impressive. We're reading off a script.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  And even then I can't handle it.

• 8:22Laci Mosley?

  Thank you. I am also reading off a script. No, you remember that different. It's all improv. I'm gonna read it all. It's coming from my mind. But I think this is so fascinating. So Sarah Kavanaugh is who this book is about, right?

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Sorry, so the podcast is about Sarah Kavanaugh. My book is more broadly about women con artists in general.

• 8:40Laci Mosley?

  I love that. And women really did open up the true crime space. You saw such a deep fascination come from women in its originality. And part of that is because we've been scammed into thinking that we are responsible for our own safety. So when you think like you gotta watch out for the man behind every corner and carry your mace and four sets of keys in between your, you know, fists and you gotta go take Krav Maga and, you know, know how to stab somebody in the eye and break their nose at the supermarket parking lot. Yes, you are going to get into true crime. Yes. So I do love this angle. That's really great. And the book is called, again, I just want the girls to know so they can purchase it because they will.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  The book is called TBD because I am still finishing the proposal.

• 9:21Laci Mosley?

  Okay, we'll be waiting patiently.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  It will be something great, I'm sure.

• 9:25Laci Mosley?

  Okay, I will be lathering myself with creams with my jade roller. The second it hits the presses.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  Thank you. I'm not going to pretend like I don't also have my jade roller, even though I am speaking out against the jade roller industrial complex.

• 9:38Laci Mosley?

  Eastern medicine, okay? Okay, the Chinese know some things too. It doesn't all need to be a pill. Amen. So Jake, I have to ask you the same question. What's your relationship with scams? It could literally be anything.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  I don't know. I feel like the way that I think about it is we live in an era where people don't trust one another. And like what scams prey on is an appeal to our goodwill. And will we trust people even though we have all these reasons that are bombarded that we shouldn't? And what I found moving about this story in particular, so in our, in, in, in the podcast, Sarah perpetuates this double life for six years, which isn't like, by the way, that's just like crazy that anything could hold up. If I tell my wife a white lie, like I'm busted within two hours. Like, forget that. I'm busted within like five minutes. So the idea that like something could last that long in and of itself is kind of what pulled me in.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  But there's a, I think the other aspect of the story that, that, that touched me was is that all the people that were drawn into this, they weren't, they weren't dumb.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  No.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  They, they were, they were motivated by desire to help someone. Who seemed to be in like terrible pain and in a very rough situation. They thought she was gonna have a leg amputated. They thought that she was dying of cancer. They thought she was in financial trouble and they were close to her. They didn't, you know, these are people that really got to know her. And so it gets to this point where what do we do when we're confronted with something where we believe that someone needs our help? And do we distrust that? Or do we, or we like tap into our generosity? And then after we get burned, then where does that leave us? Right? Are we like, I'm never helping a cancer patient again? Or are we gonna somehow try to work ourselves out of that and back to that place?

• 11:27Speaker 04

  So that, that whole thing just appealed, appealed to me.

• 11:31Laci Mosley?

  I, I like that because like even generosity is a need for human connection. So it's like, if you love your friend, you don't want to see your friend suffer. If there's a way that you could help, I absolutely do help my friends and my friends help me because that's a part of community. And it's like, yeah, you're right. How far do you go when you feel jaded by someone who's taken advantage of your kindness? It's like, we don't want to see you outside of St. Jude's, like you a part of Westboro Baptist Church, like fuck that cat, fuck them kids and their cancer. No, we don't want you to go that far.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 12:03Laci Mosley?

  But what's the happy medium for a healthy amount of distrust? Especially if someone has infiltrated your life like that for six years. That's a hard one. I don't know if you can beat some scams. That's why I have some respect for some of the scam artists and the scammers. I don't respect the scam. I don't want bad things to happen to people, whether they be good or bad people. But it is interesting, like how long?

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's so true. I also think the opposite is true where the, when there's too much distrust. There was that wild story that came out a few weeks ago where this kind of online commenter was convinced that this woman was pretending to have cancer, who actually did have cancer and went on this whole rampage to uncover her fake cancer. And, you know, the New York Times interviewed her doctors saying she actually does have cancer. And so it's kind of like, you know, yeah, to your point, where is the happy medium? I don't know that there is one. I think part of what's hard is living in a society that's so deregulated and is increasingly deregulated. Cause the reality is as individuals, there's only so much that we can do to vet each other.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Even as professional journalists, I think Jake would agree that we're kind of trained to sniff out people who are lying and there are limits to that with us.

• 13:16Laci Mosley?

  Absolutely. And it's also. It's confusing because, yes, you, like I always say, you guys told me your names and you're like, I'm just, I'm Jake. I wasn't like, are you sure? Let me see your driver's license. It's like, we can't live with that much, you know, speculation. But what the internet has done is made so many people feel like with no research, with no fact gathering on their own, that they can have an opinion about something that they are completely ignorant about. And why does someone feel entitled? You wouldn't feel entitled face to face to see someone struggling with cancer and be like, let me see your, uh, your, uh, scars and your doctor's appointments. Like, you wouldn't do that because that is insane.

• 13:58Laci Mosley?

  But online, you feel like there's this wall where you're not actually responsible for the things you say and do to people.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  It's funny though, like the other thing is, is the way that people see conspiracy. It's like there's, because like conspiracy, like we're just crazy about conspiracy theories. And in fact, like the third season of the podcast, we have the story of this young woman who was like trying to get out of a bad home situation. And, you know, she ends up, she does this crazy thing where she, she needs to change her name, but she's young and she doesn't really know what she's doing. So she takes on the name of a girl who's passed away. And then the police start investigating that murder. And when they find out that, um, this woman is supposed to be dead, is actually a student at Columbia University. This kind of all male detective squad assumes that she is a spy.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  Like that's the, that's the conclusion that they jump to, like the most kind of intense conspiracy theory you can have.

• 14:54Laci Mosley?

  I'm surprised they gave a woman that much credit. Usually they're like, you're too dumb to do crime. Cause of your period and stuff. You can't do crime. So at least they gave her the credit of like, she's gotta be a super genius.

• 15:08Speaker 04

  That's true. I didn't thought of it that way, but that, that's, that was where their, that's where their minds went.

• 15:13Laci Mosley?

  And then it's, it's hard because some conspiracies are kind of true. There is an extreme amount of propaganda coming from news sources that used to be trusted implicitly. And I mean, from working in news and television, I know that one reason I still trust a reliable source is because there's something on the line.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:33Laci Mosley?

  I'm not watching Mr. YouTube for my news because Mr. YouTube's rarely gonna get sued. But you know who will? ABC. So there is like some journalistic integrity left, but then also the way that news stories are covered sometimes, like I'm seeing real videos of stuff that actually happened and the news is like, they're not lying, but they're not showing everything.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:01Laci Mosley?

  I think that's what really ramped up these conspiracy theories, but they made it like we've talked about, where's the line? They've made an insane shift to just trusting anything and everything made up on the internet. And I don't think that's the course correction either.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Right. And I think similarly, both to conspiracy theories and to cons, frankly, it's like, yeah, things are bad, or the government is hiding things from you, but so much more banal. Like, I think of the example of RFK talking about how unhealthy America is, and it's the fault of people's diet, or their lack of exercise, or not wrestling bears, or whatever his explanation is. It's like, yeah, America has some health problems, but probably that has to do with how broken the healthcare system is. Like, it's maybe a little bit simpler than some sort of wild conspiracy.

• 16:47Laci Mosley?

  Right. And our food and food deserts, like, there's logical things. But also, I don't understand why anybody would listen to RFK because he literally had worms for brains. Like, I'm not trying to disease shame, but he had a worm in his brain. He literally had a worm in his brain. And I think the worm did some stuff. Okay? That's my conspiracy. The worm was in there doing the worm. Okay? I can't, I can't imagine what that does to one person. Okay? I just don't know if he should be like, really the crusader for America's health. Because how long did you have that worm in there before you knew something was wrong? Too long, RFK. You got good healthcare. But honestly, I'm sorry, I have to say it.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  My foster dog just barked so loud. He's like, I agree.

• 17:31Laci Mosley?

  You can still be smart. Look, two things can be true. I'm not saying the worm caused it. You can still be smart and capable if you had a worm. I'm just saying, I don't know if the worm helped. And I'm not gonna know. So that's my conspiracy.

• 17:45Laci Mosley?

  But yeah, there's like a lot of legitimate insight that you can pull out of how people process information, especially now that it's being thrown at us so quickly. And it doesn't really feel like, especially, that's one thing that scams prey upon is the faster I can get you to do something, the less time you have to think about it.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:01Laci Mosley?

  So scams usually have a hard deadline. They're starting to use more menacing language now. I keep getting these text messages that are like, you didn't pay this toll, and if you don't do it by tomorrow, then we're gonna impound your car. You got on the freeway and you didn't pay for this, and we're looking for you. Like, and I'm like, how pressing is it if you send in the text? Like, we were talking earlier before we were on air, and Jake said there might be some fire trucks in the episode. Could you imagine if your house was on fire and somebody texts you that? Like, hey Jake, your house is in flames.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  It's so true.

• 18:37Laci Mosley?

  Call police ASAP. Like, this is not urgent information.

• 18:40Speaker 04

  I might, I might believe it, though, because I have two teenage sons that struggle with the toaster.

• 18:45Laci Mosley?

  Oh, no.

• 18:45Speaker 04

  So it's like, it's, it's in the realm of possible, Lacey.

• 18:48Laci Mosley?

  I think you've raised them better than that. They're not gonna snail mail you like, dad, house on fire, cough cough, dad emoji.

• 18:57Laci Mosley?

  I, I can tell based on how smart you are that you raised them better than that. But it's like-

• 19:02Speaker 04

  I thank you for that.

• 19:03Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, but it is like, when you get a text message or a menacing email, like they're putting in that time constraint. So people are doing it everywhere.

• 19:53Speaker 01

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• 20:36Speaker 01

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• 21:19Laci Mosley?

  But yeah, no, I think that this is all so fascinating, so deep cover, y'all. If you've not done a deep dive on Sarah Cavanaugh, it's pretty shocking, the things she was up to and the scam she was running for quite some time. But let's get into our-

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Lacey, can I turn the tables on you for a second? And ask you, like, how did you get into this space? Like, what was your scam? What was your kind of draw into the scam space?

• 21:45Laci Mosley?

  Um, it was kind of a scam in itself. The, the true crime comedy space was so saturated and I never felt quite comfortable with making light of like anyone's real death. Like, I just don't think it's, I know people out there do it and I'm not trying to throw shade at them. There's a, people, you know, sometimes I laugh through funerals or we take, you know, tell jokes and stuff. I know people have different coping mechanisms, but for me, I just knew that that wasn't something that I wanted to be involved in. And I just wanted to do a comedy show, so that was my scam. This was my Trojan horse, like scamming hadn't really like popped up in the zeitgeist yet. And I was like, yeah, a show about journalism and scams, but mostly just me doing comedy, but also some journalism, like. I love that. My whole life, I've been fascinated with them because I am an actor too, and a lot of scammers are performers.

• 22:30Laci Mosley?

  They have costumes, they have accents, you know, they get deep into character, like Sarah Kavanaugh, who's got deep into character for six years. And so there is a performance element to it that I've always found fascinating, sometimes hilarious and sometimes deeply sinister. And all of it is interesting to me. Totally.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  And I, I feel like, Lacey, I feel like we, we all do a version of it, right? We don't take it to the extremes, but we all have a version of ourselves that we curate, that we put forward. This is, this is who we are, this is the, these are the stories we're gonna tell about ourselves, this is our origin story, this and that. Like, we put up, there, there's an element of that, right? That everyone engages in. I think that the, the scammers just take it to this kind of extreme end where they're, you know, they're using it in a manipulative way to get things they want. But to some extent, there's very few people that do. My wife is one of those few people who doesn't. My wife will always tell you the truth, even when you don't want to hear it, um, which is its own form of, um, of intensity, but.

• 23:28Laci Mosley?

  It's also intensity, but it also is love. I appreciate people who will tell me the truth. But I think what you're saying, Jake, is so spot on because it's as simple as, how are you doing? Like, I've never asked someone how they were doing and they've been like, I thought about jumping off my balcony today. Like, they're, like, if you're seeing someone in passing, they're not gonna tell you how they're really doing. They're not gonna be like, I'm on the brink of financial ruin, thank you so much for this coffee.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  That's right. Like, no one's, no one's put up the Instagram picture with the big ass zit right in the middle of their forehead, right?

• 23:54Laci Mosley?

  Right.

• 23:55Speaker 04

  It's all, it's all like, no, this is.

• 23:57Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, it's an appropriate amount of vulnerability too. Because there are spaces where, you know, it's not, it's culturally not appropriate for us to just be radically honest. Like, you could be sitting in a meeting with your boss and you know there's a hierarchy there. So you might be like, per my last email and not like, you didn't read my email, you suck at your job. So I'll tell you again, it's like we have to do, we all have to carry and wear like a little bit of a mask sometimes, Jake. So it's like, that's why I think people can also understand scammers is because it's like, perhaps I don't have the unmitigated gall to go out here and do these like intricate,

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 24:30Laci Mosley?

  sometimes hilarious, sometimes just like stupefying crimes. But I'm interested in it because each day we do all have to kind of put on just a little bit of a show, just a little taste.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  A hundred percent. Yeah, we're all, we all, we all dabble in it a little bit, right?

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:47Laci Mosley?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  I know, I was just gonna say that Jake and I have talked a lot about how journalism is a form of storytelling. But con artistry is also a form of storytelling. Like, in order to get someone to give you money or love or admiration or all the things that are, con artists are hustling for, you have to be able to tell a good story. People don't just fork those things over for nothing.

• 25:08Laci Mosley?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  And so, you know, that was certainly the case with Sarah, but it's the case for all scammers that I've met and researched is, they are masterful storytellers.

• 25:19Laci Mosley?

  You're so right, because if you come up to me and you're just like, give me money, I'm not gonna give it to you. But there is something that's taught in psychology that I've mentioned on the show. If you've listened before, I know you've already heard it, I'll cut to it. That typically if you're in a situation, you just give people an excuse. Most people are conflict avoidant, so you could literally say anything, like, give me money, um, my car broke down. And some people will be like, I'm so sorry to hear that, I only have five dollars, but you know, here you go. But if you walk up to anybody and you're just like, hey, I need some of your money.

• 25:49Laci Mosley?

  That's a harder sell. Some of the money. I don't think it's a great strategy for gratitude. We're getting other people to be gracious. You're right, Jess, you need a good story. Cause I can't get on.

• 26:01Speaker 04

  And my car broke down is the shittiest scam story of all time. It's like the dog ate my homework. It's like, seriously? Come on, like just like give me a little bit of like, yeah. How old is the car? Like, give me some details.

• 26:13Laci Mosley?

  Not how old is the car? See, no man would ask that. Just like, what model? I might be able to help you fix it. I'm like, no, no, I don't need you to help me fix it. Are you sure? I'm dabbled. I got a torque wrench. I could help you.

• 26:25Laci Mosley?

  You do, I was like, just give me the money. I'll fix the car. Well, how well was broken?

• 26:29Speaker 04

  I would not offer to fix your car. I would just give you the money.

• 26:32Laci Mosley?

  Is it the carburetor? What is it? Tell me specifically what's wrong with your car. No, you're so right. I want to see y'all. Congregation, reach out to me if you've ever had somebody just come up and ask you for some of your money. And you were like, sure. No story. Nothing convincing. I just want somebody walked up to you and was like, hey, you look like you have some money and I need that. I need that from you.

• 26:56Laci Mosley?

  I just feel like it's not convincing. So you, you just wait. My producer just said somebody came up to her and asked for some money. She gave us some money.

• 27:04Speaker 06

  My sister once called me, my straight sister.

• 27:07Laci Mosley?

  Your sister.

• 27:07Speaker 06

  No, I don't talk to her. We don't talk to her. She's dead to me. And she called me and she's like, hey, I heard you got a good job. So, um, you owe me money from like five years ago. I need you to just give it to me. But you owe me money feels different than can I have some money?

• 27:22Laci Mosley?

  See, she still gave you a story. She said, remember when I gave you the money? Also, I'm your sister.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:30Laci Mosley?

  That's not a cold call for money, Jess. It's not a cold call for money.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Wait, did you, did you know what she was talking about? Did you know when she said you owe, or is it just?

• 27:38Speaker 06

  No, I was like, what are you talking about?

• 27:41Laci Mosley?

  Just started this story like this person asked me for randomly asked me for money. It did also was my blood sister, but, um.

• 27:49Speaker 06

  I don't talk to her.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  I don't know if you, I don't know if any of you guys have kids. Do you, do you, you guys have kids, any of you?

• 28:00Laci Mosley?

  No, I don't have any unemployed people in my house.

• 28:03Speaker 04

  Let me tell you.

• 28:05Laci Mosley?

  It's my favorite answer I've ever heard.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  To be a parent in the age of Apple Pay. You get these messages at like 10 a.m. He's, they're in school. Can I have four Apple bucks? And it's like, you know, and it's like you, you know, I would not, you could never do that in the old days. You would have to ask your parent, but now it's like these little, these little notes that come in and you're just like, oh God. And then he'll text me again, I'll be all right, here's your four Apple bucks.

• 28:30Laci Mosley?

  Yo, they're, they're geniuses for that. I will say, I don't have any children, but I do have a kid sister who's significantly younger than me. Oh, and best believe she's like, I need money for a party bus. I'm like, ma'am.

• 28:45Laci Mosley?

  Why is that my problem? And she said it like she really needed it. I was like, I don't think you do.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  That is amazing.

• 28:55Laci Mosley?

  I just threw you a party and gave you a bunch of money and here you back again. No, I, I need the party bus though. You don't understand, we need it. No.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  My little brother used to do the opposite where he would give us a gift to convince us to let him throw a party in the house. So he sent my older sister an edible arrangement when my parents were away saying, hey Abby, can I have a party while mom and dad are gone? Here's some crushed pineapple or whatever.

• 29:21Laci Mosley?

  See, that's a little bit more of a scam tactic.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 29:24Laci Mosley?

  Like Jake's kids are like, give me money, father. But he was like, give a little to get a little.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Can I introduce you to a chocolate covered strawberry?

• 29:32Laci Mosley?

  Enough to let me throw a party? Yeah, yeah, it was tasty, huh? Just like that party I'm gonna throw that we just agreed to. Yep, everybody on the same page, so glad.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  It was very subtle.

• 29:41Laci Mosley?

  I love it.

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• 31:48Laci Mosley?

  I love it. Well, let's get into our historic hood wink for this week. So I wanted your expert opinions about a scam that happened in the 90s. We're gonna throw it back a little bit. Why not? So several works of art worth half a billion dollars were stolen from a Boston museum in mid, like a midnight art heist.

• 32:07Speaker 03

  Oh, I know one.

• 32:07Laci Mosley?

  It was the biggest property crime in U.S. history. This is the Gardner Museum, yeah. Yep, at the time. And it's still unsolved. With the art still missing, there's a $10 million reward on the table for anyone with information leading to directly safely returning the art. Now, I do want to start by saying this is giving spy versus spy because museums ain't nothing but, "Look at what we stole." You didn't own that art either, okay? You just stole it for long enough that you were like, "But we stole it for longer." So it's ours. And we put a little light on it, and we hung it up real cute. And we got a person in white gloves who won't let you touch things, okay? We earned it. But yes, you're exactly right.

• 32:49Laci Mosley?

  So the heist happened March 18th, 1990, which was the day of, like, the St. Patrick's Day in Boston, which is an iconic day. I think it's kind of our, you know, when they used to have like, are they called cabals? No, that's not right. There was like a ceremony that people used to have where like, one day out of the year, they would just act batshit crazy.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  The Purge?

• 33:13Laci Mosley?

  It might be a cabal. You'll get it for me. It wasn't The Purge. They gave it some kind of meaning. It was like the end of the harvest before, or whatever. Somebody will come up with it for me. But St. Patrick's Day has always felt like The Purge, or like some kind of like universal day where like, we're all gonna go outside and be unhinged. So I think that's a great day to steal, personally.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  This is my favorite fact about this heist, also because I'm from Boston originally. It's a fucking, so I don't actually, sorry, I don't know if I could swear on this.

• 33:40Laci Mosley?

  Oh, you can swear on this show.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Okay, cool.

• 33:42Laci Mosley?

  And it's Bacchanal. It came to me. No one Googled it?

• 33:44Speaker 03

  Ah, Bacchanal. Nice. That's such a $4 word.

• 33:47Laci Mosley?

  I told you I read. Back to what you were saying, Jess.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  I think Boston is a mess all the time of drunk Irish people. And St. Patrick's Day is an insane time. And I remember reading that whoever the thieves were, that they chose this day on purpose because they knew the whole city, everyone would be drunk, and this was the time to strike. And they were right about that.

• 34:09Laci Mosley?

  And they're absolutely right. The police are overwhelmed. Some of the police are probably also drunk.

• 34:16Laci Mosley?

  And everyone's running around the streets. There's no way to pay attention to everything that's going on. So the museum, I'm about to call it the library, they don't care about those either. But the museum was probably the least of everyone's concerns that day. So, perfect, perfect day to do this. So, this is the biggest day for public drunkenness in North America, like we just said. And it's also a day when all the Boston cops are distracted, like we also just said. At 1 a.m. that morning, two white men in police uniforms and probably fake mustaches rang the night buzzer for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a few blocks away from where the parade route would be, claiming they were responding to a disturbance. And we have a photo of them, well, at least a police sketch.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Looks legit.

• 35:01Laci Mosley?

  And this is very funny. We will post this to the Instagram. But this looks like every cop you saw in an 80's movie. Every cop that was at the YMCA, every cop you can still see now dancing in a go-go outfit in West Hollywood. We were not gonna catch this white man. This white man is faceless. Both of them.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Except the village people.

• 35:21Laci Mosley?

  I can't even believe they got a good sketch out of him because I've never seen a face that screams "John" harder in my life. Like, John Smith, we are never finding you.

• 35:33Laci Mosley?

  If I had this face, I would also do robberies.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  I mean, no wonder they got away with it. The perfect face.

• 35:38Laci Mosley?

  Yes. It's like, you know, some people are just gifted. Usain Bolt, I'll never be able to run as fast as him. But if I was this faceless man, I would have to use my talents somehow. And we'll show you the sketches. They're very cartoonishly hilarious. Like, they also look like every white man in Boston.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's true. It's really true. I can, yeah, growing up in Boston, I can support that. This looks like every friend of my dad's I've ever met.

• 36:02Laci Mosley?

  There's a sketch now that's like problematic, but it was on Mad TV where they were like, "He looked like a man." Like, "These men look like men." Like, that's it. Ms. Swan was just like, "He looked like a man." And they were like, "We need you to give us details." It was like, "I just did. He looked like a man." I'm not gonna do the accent, but y'all know. Y'all know what I'm talking about. So, once inside, they reportedly told the two security guards, Rick and Randy, "Gentlemen," this is so Boston.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  Sorry, I don't know why Rick and Randy really got me.

• 36:29Laci Mosley?

  They told, they told Rick and Randy, gentlemen, this is a robbery. And that's a terrible Boston accent, but I don't care. So they overpowered and tied up the guards with duct tape. The robbers spent the next 81 minutes seizing 13 works of art valued at over $500 million, making it the largest property crime in US history. When the morning security shift arrived at 7:30 AM, no one was there to buzz them in the building. When they did not get in through the back door, they found security cameras turned away and the VHS tapes gone and an empty frame and a crowbar in the security office. They were just showing off with that crowbar. You could have took your little crowbar with you. And Rick and Randy were still duct taped in the basement.

• 37:12Laci Mosley?

  In the Dutch room and the blue room of the museum, paintings had been smashed to break their glass and the cabinets is cut out of their frames with a knife. And I just wanna, can we go back to Ricky, Ricky and Randy? This, Rick and Randy look cooler than I was expecting. How they duct taped them.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  I don't, like, is that a beard? I can't totally see what.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  Is that his face?

• 37:34Laci Mosley?

  Yes, they duct taped these people.

• 37:36Speaker 04

  Oh, that's, that's wrong. The guy's just trying to make minimum wage.

• 37:40Laci Mosley?

  Right. It looks like these two poor guys just had like a facelift. Like they look like they got their neck done. That's how they taped them up.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  It looks like, it looks like Chewbacca with duct tape.

• 37:50Laci Mosley?

  Yes.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Oh, it's real wrong.

• 37:52Laci Mosley?

  And also like you know that duct tape hurt when they took it off. Because these men are the hairiest security guards I've ever seen in my life. They're also pretty non-threatening, like slimmer builds. Like they probably have never had to fight anybody ever. All they have to do is tell people like, oh, don't touch the art. And these guys gotta pay. And like, they've never had to like tackle anybody. Like they have, they could just sip sparkling water and, and hang out.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  No, I said it's getting better and better, by the way. I'm really, I'm here for it.

• 38:26Laci Mosley?

  I'm trying, I'm giving you my best. But yeah, so they were already slight, poor little men anyway. So I'm sure that it wasn't hard for these two tough Boston-looking dudes to tie them up in a cartoonish manner. So let's see a little bit of the news clip here from when this happened.

• 38:44Speaker 08

  The thieves hit the Dutch room on the second floor, the short gallery just down the hall, the blue room just off the visitors' entrance, picking and choosing their targets. The shopping list included a Vermeer, the concert, and three Rembrandts. Among them, the Storm on the Sea of Galilee.

• 38:59Speaker 09

  Anyone who knows this collection even casually would know that the Rembrandts and the Vermeer, being the only Vermeer in New England, are very valuable paintings.

• 39:09Speaker 08

  They ripped some from the walls, sliced others from their frames. Experts believe the well-planned heist was a contract job.

• 39:16Speaker 10

  I would characterize it very much as a tragedy, not only to the art world, but to the people of this country.

• 39:23Laci Mosley?

  Okay, um, sorry to all the Bostonians, but how the hell did y'all get three Rembrandts to Boston? Because I just feel like they should have never let y'all have these.

• 39:34Speaker 03

  I agree with that, and I actually can answer this question.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Because I love, I love this museum and it was just-

• 39:42Laci Mosley?

  Three Rembrandts in Biloxi, Mississippi have been stolen? No, those did not belong there.

• 39:47Speaker 03

  One wasn't enough, apparently.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  Boston people have some culture between all of the binge drinking and fighting the street.

• 39:57Laci Mosley?

  You know what, I'm sure y'all do. Because you have, I mean, you have great landmark people who came out of Boston, like Hilary Baldwin. So I know, I know that y'all have some, some character there and some culture. I'm not gonna throw too much shade on y'all. Three feels like too many.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  I fully agree.

• 40:13Laci Mosley?

  I would have been fine with one.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  I think we would have been fine with one, too. And then we would maybe still have one instead of zero.

• 40:20Laci Mosley?

  Right, and it should have been guarded in like bulletproof glass and watched 24/7. Because the girls in Boston need their culture, too, but three is, three is insane.

• 40:32Laci Mosley?

  So.

• 40:34Laci Mosley?

  Just saying, y'all gotta take some onus in this too.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  I fully agree.

• 40:37Laci Mosley?

  I don't like to blame the victim, but I just feel like, what were y'all doing? Um, I could definitely see it being an inside job, but the only reason that I don't necessarily agree is because, well, there's two, I have two minds here. You have to have a specific set of skills to boost that kind of art. Like, you can't just go selling that on the street. So you definitely have to be connected in the art world in some way. So I'm not going to say that there weren't some other deeper ties here to how you could move this kind of like precious cargo. It's like when, if someone sold a Hope Diamond, you can't go sell that at Zales. Like, people are gonna know. But, the other part of me is like, they cut the pictures out with knives.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:19Laci Mosley?

  And that just feels a little barbaric for something, you know, that coveted. Y'all cut it out with an X-acto knife?

• 41:27Speaker 03

  I really feel like it's gotta be mobsters, like mafia, I'm picturing like mafia bosses. This feels like a commit, like some sort of order.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  You can't sell these things, that's the problem with, I did another story about

• 41:37Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, yeah, you did a heist story.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did, I was actually, wrote letters to the guy that stole, he was in jail, we were like pen pals for a year, and I was asking him a lot of que, you know, the problem is you can't sell this stuff, because you can't put it on the open market, and so, the value is actually, it's not, it's not what everyone says it is, because who's gonna buy it? Because you can't, whoever buys it can't show it. Um, so like, actually, they say that what, what happens with these pieces of art often is they, you're right Jess, they do end up in like mob hands, and then, it can be used as like a get out of jail free card, like if you, you know, reduce my sentence, I will tell you where that Rembrandt is stashed. Um, and so that's the value of it.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  It's a very expensive bargaining chip.

• 42:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:27Laci Mosley?

  Gotta be somebody trying to like get out of a Rico, because otherwise, how do you use this? And if you got to rob a museum, and you had 81 minutes, and you didn't bring any power tools, and you were hitting things with crowbar, yeah, it's giving, it's giving mafia, it's giving Big Tony and them, because they were like, yeah, just take that one, I saw that, my wife said that's a good one, yeah, yeah, let's get that, smashy, smashy.

• 42:53Laci Mosley?

  No, it's gonna still be worth something. We're just stabbing up the corners a little bit. No, no, it'll be fine. Like, we'll get a, we'll get a smaller frame. We'll get a smaller frame. Nobody even know that we stabbed up the corners. Like, what are you doing? Yeah, it's not really giving professional criminal. No, not at all.

• 43:10Laci Mosley?

  It was Ocean's Two. They, they, they didn't have the full 11. They did what they could. They went to Home Depot real quick. And they were like, all right, let's do the moth, let's do the heist. All right, we get in there. The way they duct taped them people. And like, just keep wrapping it around his head. Just keep wrapping it. It'll work. My son made a wallet like this once. Just keep wrapping it. But yeah, so this is just, this is very unserious and very unsophisticated, but funny. So, the 13 works that were stolen from the museum haven't been found. They took three paintings by 1600s Dutch master Rembrandt that we just talked about. Shouldn't have been there in the first place. Including Storm on the Sea of Galilee, which is his only seascape.

• 43:53Laci Mosley?

  They also took Manischew's Torini, sorry, Tortoni. I'm not familiar. He made the piece of rolls.

• 44:01Laci Mosley?

  I'll take your word for it. But they took this, and it was painted in 1875 in France. Vermeer's The Concert was one of only 33 works Vermeer ever did, and now one is gone. It's considered the most valuable stolen object in the world, probably worth more than $200 million on its own. I do want to say that a lot of art valuation is just money laundering, and we all know that. Because we've seen ridiculous things be sold for millions, like a banana that was duct taped to a wall. Y'all are money laundering. It was a real banana, too. Like, please be serious. This is. I missed this. When did this happen? At Art Basel, that's where they do all the laundering. Okay?

• 44:44Laci Mosley?

  If you're a crypto king, if you, if you're a Miami baller, you gotta go to Art Basel and do a little bit of crime. So you can keep the taxman out of your, your business. We all know that. And then you go to the club. Get to the club, you smoke a little hookah after you did your art crime. It works great. That's my always saying. No notes. So they also took five small sketches by French artist Edgar Degas. Drawn on paper that was less than a square foot in size and worth less than $100,000 combined. They were just like, I don't know, this too? This looks thin and papery. That seems random to me, yeah. Also missing was a bronze beaker used for serving wine in ancient China. That also doesn't belong in Boston. Let's be serious.

• 45:30Laci Mosley?

  Ancient China, why do y'all have it? The least Chinese place in America. And y'all got stuff from ancient China. So, um, and this thing is like about 10 inches tall. We have a photo of it. And although it's one of the oldest works in the museum dating from the 12th century B.C., it was only worth a few thousand dollars. Last, they took a French Imperial eagle finale, or a flagpole topper from the corner of a framed flag for Napoleon's Imperial Guard. No one really knows why anyone would have taken this particular thing unless you thought it was made of gold instead of bronze. That's what they thought.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  I'm sticking with someone's mob wife.

• 46:12Laci Mosley?

  Get that chunk of gold. We'll melt it down. Get the chunk.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Think someone's mob wife really wanted this particular thing for her dining table or something.

• 46:21Laci Mosley?

  Oh, yes, you're right. It's sitting there every holiday.

• 46:24Speaker 03

  You know it.

• 46:24Laci Mosley?

  She got it out. She was like, you know, Tony boosted that for me. Yeah, he really loves me.

• 46:30Speaker 03

  It was the bronze anniversary.

• 46:32Laci Mosley?

  Right. That's, he's so sweet. He's always thinking about the family.

• 46:39Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, because some of these things, they were just like, I don't know. It's shiny. We take it. So the thieves passed other valuable works by like Raphael Botticelli and Michelangelo and left them. Why do y'all have a Michelangelo? Again, too many nice things in one place. This is, I gotta blame you. So they didn't even go to the third floor where Titans, The Rape of Europa hung, which is among like the most valuable paintings in Boston. So whoever did it had a very specific eclectic taste. Or they didn't actually know that much about art, especially about Isabella Stewart Gardner's 100-year-old personal collection. So maybe they're just like, all this stuff is worth a lot. We're gonna take some things.

• 47:19Laci Mosley?

  But they left some things that people would have typically looked at if they even had a passing familiarity with art, because there's so many lithograms of this photo. Like, you could get it on a mug. You can get it on a T-shirt. You know what I mean? Like, it's been so saturated throughout the market, even though obviously having the real thing means something to some people.

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's true. I will say if I were to commit a crime, art thievery seems like the most fun. I don't know if I would take that particular painting, but definitely something from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. That was my favorite museum growing up.

• 47:55Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, it feels fun and classy for sure. Not the way they did it, but you know.

• 48:00Speaker 04

  No, it's romantic.

• 48:01Laci Mosley?

  It is. It's like better than going to like an Ace Cash and go and being like, get me all the money. Like, that's so unsophisticated.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  Although jewel thief, I don't know. It's it's close with the, you know, the little velvet sack with the diamonds.

• 48:15Laci Mosley?

  Ooh, the velvet sack with all the little diamonds that look like rocks because they don't have a setting. Ooh, that is fancy.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  And you can sell those.

• 48:24Laci Mosley?

  You can definitely boost those. And you can just trade them to people for things that are more valuable. Get a boat, you know.

• 48:30Speaker 03

  As you can see, journalists have thought a lot about what would our plan B look like.

• 48:35Laci Mosley?

  Yes, you're right. Oh, we probably get to do a little dancer on some lasers. Yeah, that's sophisticated. I like that. You definitely have to wear all black and like fancy gloves.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  Very sleek.

• 48:45Laci Mosley?

  A ski mask. Yeah, you get to have some costumery. Just I agree with both of you. They took the diamonds and art are the most romantic robberies. But the way they did it made it like a smash and grab. So it's not as romantic.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Truly. On St. Patrick's Day.

• 49:00Laci Mosley?

  Right, they're like, we want the stuff. Like, they didn't, they didn't do it all classy.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  But it is funny though, right? Like that we give some thieves a pass that we're like, that's romantic. That's, you know.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Kind of chic.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  That that seems like sexy or that seems like I, you know, that's a hero, but someone else who like steals your car or something is poor. Like, that's, you know. I don't know. It's funny the way we we classify these criminals in our brain.

• 49:24Laci Mosley?

  I think it's also because we all intrinsically know that museums are nothing but a host, a host, a heist, like memorabilia. It is look at all this shit we stole. So when somebody takes something from there, we're kind of like, well, you did steal it too. And like diamonds, the way that we acquire them and the blood diamonds and the mines. It's also like, well, you was kind of doing a bad thing with all them babies you had working. Yeah. You got to take one, you got to charge it to the game. It's true. Like, you're not that great either. Yeah. That's why robbers rob other robbers. We're like. Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  It's funny too, when you heard the spokesman in that clip you played, she framed it as they stole it from the people of New England, but it doesn't really, I don't know if that resonates with people. They're like, you took it from a museum, you took it, you know.

• 50:13Laci Mosley?

  From a private collection.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  You didn't take it from me.

• 50:15Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, it's not like I go there every day and look at it and I'm like, it's mine.

• 50:21Laci Mosley?

  Maybe you take your kids once or twice or a school field trip and you're like, look at the beauty, but it's not something where I would be like, this is mine. I don't own that. But it's cute that they tried to make it like, I think they were trying to make it worse than what it was so that people would have some empathy for the museum because it's really hard sometimes to have empathy if you feel like the person who's the victim is not. And we do have to work on this because bad things happen to bad people too. And that doesn't mean that the bad person shouldn't pay for the crime, you know, it shouldn't be like the, the perfect victim. But when it comes to institutional crimes like this, it's just a little harder. I mean, it was harder with that Brian CEO guy that Luigi Mangione allegedly might have been around when he died.

• 51:06Laci Mosley?

  We don't know. Everybody was kind of like, hmm, it sounds like he was a bad dude. It, it does amaze me how out of touch you can be when you get that rich, where like your bottom line is people's like bottoming of life. Right. And like, it was, bottoming, y'all know, you know what I meant by that. Let's keep it in. Fascinating. No, not that. But it is fascinating because you saw these CEOs like kind of at the beginning like come out and we're like, this is insane, like we can't believe this person allegedly did this. And then slowly when they realized people were not on their side, all their pictures started to disappear from their websites, like Blue Cross Blue Shield was like, never mind on the whole anesthesia thing.

• 51:51Laci Mosley?

  You can have as much anesthesia as you want. We're not going to cut it off mid-starter, like we said before, that was crazy. We were joking, we all agreed, don't kill us. Don't shoot us, please. They're like, actually, we're having an anesthesia palooza right now up at the headquarters. Y'all could pull up and get a tank.

• 52:08Laci Mosley?

  It's so funny how quickly that tune changed. But you know, morally, I don't know where I stand on that. And also just legally, I'd never tell you if I did. But yeah, it's interesting to see like what we evaluate as like a bad crime versus like a crime of opportunity. That we're like, this is fine. I think stealing an individual's car is worse because it's like you stole one person's car. You could have gone to the dealership.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:31Laci Mosley?

  And then we'd be more on your side.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  I think.

• 52:34Laci Mosley?

  They're not good either, one of them. But if you took somebody's car and now they got to walk versus like, you know, rich man, Mr. Honda, who's just got them all sitting outside looking shiny. Like, that feels better.

• 52:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. Because anyone that like you steal like giant diamonds from someone, you just assume they're going to be all right.

• 52:54Laci Mosley?

  Yeah. If they, if they could have wealth that was so absorbent that they were like, I don't know. I spent a lot of money on rocks. Yeah, I think we fine. I think it'll be okay. That being said, all the rocks that I have, which is very few, I'd need and, and, and I, I look at them every day and they're the reason I live. So, um.

• 53:14Speaker 03

  Makes you sound like Gollum or something. I like that.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  You did, you did sound like Gollum there.

• 53:20Laci Mosley?

  Precious rocks. They're, they're very tiny, y'all. They got occlusions. It's not even rocks you would want.

• 53:29Speaker 03

  Let me keep them.

• 53:31Laci Mosley?

  To wrap this up though, but so let's learn just a little bit about Isabella Stewart Gardner. Isabella was a former American collector, philanthropist and patron of the arts in the late 1800s in Boston. After marrying rich, she had one child who died. Then a miscarriage was left her unable to have more children. When having kids was no longer an option, she and her husband dedicated their lives to traveling and buying art. She was an eccentric who liked to make weaves, oh, sorry, waves socially. And she was a diehard sports fan. She wore a Red Sox headband to a concert at the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1912 and almost caused a panic.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  That's the most Boston thing I've ever heard.

• 54:10Laci Mosley?

  She's so Boston. But you know what? She had duality. She was like, I'm Boston, but also art, you know? I love it. So the musicians were so shocked to see it that they momentarily stopped playing. This is the picture. And, um, wait, is she in a full? No, that's not her. Okay, so I was like, she didn't go in a full uniform and jersey. That's a little boy.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  That'd be, that'd be a really bold move.

• 54:38Laci Mosley?

  I was about to say, okay, she is doing too much. Like, the orchestra was like, this is the most ghetto shit I've ever seen in my life.

• 54:45Laci Mosley?

  They had to stop real quick. Like, we can't believe this. She is uncool. Wow. But she sounds like a good time to me. So she designed a Venetian palace to house all of her art as a formal museum after her husband died. It opened on January 1st, 1903 with a grand opening celebration featuring a performance by members of the same orchestra that thought she was ghetto. And a menu that included champagne and donuts.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  I mean, high-low. We love that.

• 55:17Laci Mosley?

  And, and whatever the Boston cream. It is gorgeous. This is absolutely breathtaking.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Jess, is that like what we're looking at there? That greenhouse? That, is that a glass roof? That's like a greenhouse courtyard, right?

• 55:28Speaker 03

  It's stunning. And it's right when you walk in, you see this, like, Venetian courtyard. And then on the left, there's this huge flamenco dancer painting. It's incredible. It's really an incredible museum.

• 55:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, my god, look at that.

• 55:41Laci Mosley?

  This is like what Donald Trump thought his casinos looked like.

• 55:46Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 55:47Laci Mosley?

  Like, in his head, they look like this. They're not just like shiny gold, like, toilets and stuff. Like, I think he thought he did this. Like, he might have some dysmorphia about how it looks, but this is, like, so beautiful. It's really tasteful.

• 56:00Speaker 03

  Although at the time, I'm sure that Boston people thought that this was trashy and, and too European or some such.

• 56:06Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, they probably, you're right. It is too European for Boston. But she was trying to class up the joint, okay? She, she gonna wear her hat to the symphony, but she also was giving it some class and panache. So, we'll give it for her. After the robbery in 1990, the FBI immediately took over the investigation, but they didn't have a fine art division and they didn't recover any useful physical evidence. Sotheby's and Christie's offered $1 million rewards to start with, if they could recover any of the art. The museum rang off the hook with tips, but nothing paid off. With no arrests or suspects taken for questioning, by 1997, the museum increased the award to $5 million. And then later, $10 million. She really wanted those paintings back. The museum did.

• 56:51Laci Mosley?

  And people have theories. I'm sure you guys have heard some of these. Um, but like we said earlier, the paintings would be impossible to sell and very difficult to fence, given how public the robbery had been and how famous the paintings were. The thieves were probably not professional. We could tell that. And they didn't know how to handle the art or plan where it was going to go. That's another thing is I feel like they threw this in the back of like a Chevy. And like this art needs to be lit properly and you know, you can't have water damage. I feel like this art had a lot of like beer spilled on it. I, I really don't think they knew how to take care of it. They don't strike me as like white glovers.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Is it because they cut it out of the frames?

• 57:29Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, that has a little bit to do with it. I don't think any true art lover, especially if you have 81 minutes, come on, get a power tool. Like cutting it out is crazy. So some theorize that a crime lord could have hired a team to steal the art. Like you were saying Jake, like very like Dr. No style Russian oligarch or rich oil, oil baron. Others believe the theft could have been an inside job. We talked about that too, given how easily the thieves got into the museum. I don't think it's that. I just think on St. Patrick's Day, they knew nobody was going to be looking for high art. Like the museum was very public, very quiet that day. Yeah. So there was a secret door in the Dutch room, which was ajar when the investigators got there. So the thieves must have known about it.

• 58:11Laci Mosley?

  They triggered a proximity detector alarm at one of the Rembrandt paintings during the robbery and didn't seem to be phased by that or speed up their process either. So that's why it's given that inside job theory. They were like, oh, we tripped an alarm, but we need, it's not a big deal if it's your house. Like we all tripped our own alarm and been like, oh, let's call ADD. But if I was robbing the place, I'd be like, oh, we gotta get out of here. So Rick, the security guard who buzzed in the robbers was a rock musician and known pothead at the time.

• 58:43Laci Mosley?

  Known pothead is so funny to me. I was saying, we're gonna blame him because he was smoking pot?

• 58:47Speaker 04

  That's some outdated terminology there.

• 58:48Laci Mosley?

  Yes. And also, what does that even mean? Like, he was really?

• 58:52Speaker 04

  What rock star, what rock musician is not a known pothead?

• 58:56Laci Mosley?

  Not a known pothead. He was, he was getting the word out there. One time I saw a flyer on the street. It was like, it's me, Rick. I'm a known pothead. I love weed. I just wanted you to know that about me. Fun fact, marijuana is my friend. Like, I don't know. But Rick died in 2024 at the age of 57. He always said he was innocent and investigators never arrested him. He was like, I was somewhere smoking pot, y'all. Like, or he was high when he buzzed them in. He probably wasn't thinking somebody was gonna do a 5 million, 500 million dollar heist. He was just like, oh, people wanna come in the me, they look like cups. I love pot. Buzz. Makes sense to me. Adds up. Truly. So organized crime often uses stolen artists, international currency.

• 59:39Laci Mosley?

  We talked about that too, to buy drugs or weapons using 10% of its public valuation on the actual art market. So the 500 million worth would have only been like 50 million on the dark market. So the FBI looks closely at the Irish and Italian mobs as suspects at the time. Damn, them stereotypes. Which we leaned into heavily in this show. We were looking at y'all. The first stop is the mob. So we had a suspect, Bobby, who was implicated in the crime, but they could never pin anything on him. He just loved weed and he died at 57. Rick was the suspect, but he died of weed. I really had to keep, he might have not died of weed, y'all, but he did.

• 1:00:22Laci Mosley?

  And so then famous art thief Miles Connor, who was in jail at the time of the theft, so he has an alibi of prison, claims that Bobby had done it. Now Bobby wasn't a crime family, so this made sense. But unfortunately Bobby was found dead in the trunk of his Cadillac in 1991. So they couldn't talk to Bobby. But it sounds like somebody in the crime family caught up with Bobby because trunk is not usually a suspicious death. Natural circumstances. Yeah, nobody's like, this is it for me. And then pops their own trunk, so.

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:01:01Laci Mosley?

  We don't know what happened to Bobby, but we're no Bobby gone. Now, in 2013, this is wrapping it up. The FBI announced that they were very confident that they figured out who did the heist. But they didn't say who they were, only that they are now dead and they didn't recover the art. Although they've never named the suspects. They were probably talking about Bobby Donati and members of the Italian mob. Federal prosecutors have said anyone who willingly returns art will not be prosecuted. Yeah, we believe you, feds.

• 1:01:32Laci Mosley?

  Come in and give us the art.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  I love the we know who did it, but we won't tell you. That's a good move. I want to start doing that.

• 1:01:38Laci Mosley?

  Is it? They're like, we're on to you, but we're not gonna tell you who. Because if you know, we know, then we know you know.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  By the way, that would be the most crap true crime podcast of all time.

• 1:01:51Laci Mosley?

  I know who did it, but I'm not gonna tell you.

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  You know that we know that you know who we are.

• 1:01:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, we'd be in business for like one day.

• 1:01:59Laci Mosley?

  All right, this is definitely not what you guys do. Deep cover is beating, I know who you are, but you don't know who we are. But I guess you can see me, but we're not gonna tell you.

• 1:02:13Laci Mosley?

  And to put in terms of how unserious that is, Mayor Eric Adams tried this when they were looking

• 1:02:21Laci Mosley?

  for a suspect in that shooting that allegedly Louis Manjani was involved in. Allegedly, very much heavy on the allegedly. So Mayor Adams got on, he's so unserious. He's at the nightclub all the time. I've never seen a mayor with so many celebrities. Like, why is your Instagram popping? Go be the mayor of New York City, please, sir. Why are you out here getting likes and follows? Put the hookah down and be serious. He came out and was like, we know who it is. We're not gonna tell y'all, but we know. Like, y'all definitely don't know.

• 1:02:55Laci Mosley?

  It's not a good strategy. I don't think, it can only work on small children. Like, we know this. Yeah. What'd you say?

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, by the way, I love that the hookah is a theme because Adams is smoking it, but also the art Basel folks comes back to the hookah.

• 1:03:10Laci Mosley?

  Listen, people who do crime love hookah. And they also love to live in downtown Los Angeles. These are facts. I don't make the rules. If you've ever been to downtown LA, you know, everybody there is employed at crime.co. Okay?

• 1:03:26Laci Mosley?

  And you know, people love hookah, okay? Nothing, nothing relaxes you more after a day of chicanery than a ice mango hookah in the club.

• 1:03:40Laci Mosley?

  I stand on this. You know where the highest crime per capita is like in scams? Atlanta, Georgia. Do you know how many hookah restaurants they have? Anywhere you go, there's gonna be a step and repeat and they'll ask you if you want hookah with your steak frites and I am not making that up.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  I would fully read the research paper comparing hookah per capita to scam. That's amazing.

• 1:04:01Laci Mosley?

  To the most hookah joints. I'm telling you, it's the truth. So lastly here, federal prosecutors, they were like, come in, we ain't finna jump you. Just give us the painting back. The statute of limitations expired in 1995 as well. So the thieves and anyone who participated in the theft can't be prosecuted. Gardner's will decreed that nothing in her collection should be removed. So the empty frames on the walls are at the museum today. And honestly, Isabella, that's very cunty of you. Cause you were like, now people will come to the museum to see the robbery too. So we gotta keep the museum going. Like leave the glass on the ground too. Put some, put the little, little step and repeat around the glass and the crowbar.

• 1:04:44Laci Mosley?

  Y'all hang the crowbar up, okay? Cause that is high art. I love it. This is, she, she really did it. She was a fun time. Yes, Isabella, sorry you got robbed. But it sounds like you lived a good life.

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  I think she even specified like you cannot change the color of the tapestries on the wall. You cannot repaint anything like as I have died is how it should remain from here until forever.

• 1:05:08Laci Mosley?

  Now she was wrong there.

• 1:05:12Laci Mosley?

  The style is very much outdated. This wallpaper is screaming. It's screaming out to us.

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  You don't want a heavy sconce on the wall?

• 1:05:22Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, that heavy medieval sconce, like please, that should have been held by like a, a, a child in a white nightgown in the 1800s as they go to use the restroom outside. It does not belong in here. Like I'm. I'm fine with her having the art heist still there, but I don't know. I like a museum with white walls. I want to look at the painting. But she was like, you know what? The whole museum is the art and we leaving it like that. Go Sox.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  And it's exactly. And it's her house. Can you imagine you die and you say, my house is a museum and you can literally move nothing? Like what? That's the ultimate power move. I fucking love that.

• 1:05:57Laci Mosley?

  It really is. And honestly, tradition is nothing but being bullied by the dead. We can do whatever we want to that place. She gonna stop us? She gonna haunt us? We literally could paint the walls white and take everything out if we wanted to.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  I think she would haunt us.

• 1:06:12Laci Mosley?

  That's one of the pervasive scams in society because we want people to honor our last wishes. So we're like, well, if we don't honor theirs, then this, then the culture is going to start not honoring. And then I can't leave my old house museum the way I want it. It's fair.

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  I love that, by the way. What did you say? Tradition is nothing but being bullied by the dead?

• 1:06:31Laci Mosley?

  Yeah, just being bullied by the dead.

• 1:06:33Speaker 03

  So good.

• 1:06:33Laci Mosley?

  I'm not the first person to say it, but that's what's happening. And we're like, yes, but we've done this for so long. Okay. And we used to have wooden teeth. Do you want to go back to that? Like be serious. But that brings us to the end of a very fun episode. Thank you guys for helping me walk through the ending there. Good luck to my producers for making it make sense.

• 1:06:54Laci Mosley?

  See, but if y'all, if y'all have y'all reading comprehension skills, you can get a red string and a murder board and you could figure out.

• 1:06:59Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:07:00Laci Mosley?

  Or you could just Google it. It's also there. No, we'll make it cute. But we always ask at the end of this podcast, where would you like to be found? Anything you want to plug? Anything you want to share? Any social media?

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  Sure, we'll definitely listen to our new season of Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah, anywhere you get your podcasts.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  And hopefully a book from me coming soon titled To Be Determined. You can find me on Instagram at Jess McQ3 or read my stuff on JessMcQ.com.

• 1:07:29Laci Mosley?

  Amazing.

• 1:07:31Speaker 04

  And Jake. Same, basically, yeah. Check out our podcast, The Truth About Sarah. Um, my website's, uh, jakehowburn.com. And thank you, Lacey, for having us on. Yeah.

• 1:07:41Laci Mosley?

  Thank you both for being here. As always, you can find me at D I V A L A C I, Diva Lacey, on all platforms. If you want to see my personal life and shenanigans, if you want to see any of these photos from this episode, Scam Goddess Pod on Instagram. If you want to chat with me, Scam Goddess Pod on Twitter. My book is out, Scam Goddess. You can get it anywhere you get your books. And watch my television show, Scam Goddess, on Hulu. And also watch Going Dutch. We're coming back for season two, and all episodes are also streaming now on Hulu. Consume something with my face in it or on it, please, I beg of you. All right, congregation, I want y'all to get out there and stay, mm, mm, mm, mm, stay heisting, Boston.

• 1:08:26Laci Mosley?

  Scam Goddess. This has been an Earwolf production in association with Team Coco. Scam Goddess stars and is hosted by me, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. Our producer is Jessica Sisneros, and our audio engineer is Rich Garcia. Research for the show is conducted by Kate Doyle. Stay scheming.

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