One of his prey, a corrupt Santa Fe, N.M., dealer in native American artifacts, sent Wittman a note after being arrested: 'Dear Bob: I don't know what to say. He often posed as a corrupt art collector or dealer, offering cash for hot art, and then busting his new 'friends.' Priceless: being there and sweating with him while he draws criminals into the open to get to the art. It's high-pressure, precise work requiring maximum cool at all times. … Forget what you've seen on television.' His objective: 'Winning a person's trust and then taking advantage of it.'Īt one point, Wittman is in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., entertaining a criminal on a yacht filled with undercover FBI agents. 'You need to master your subject and stay one or two moves ahead of your opponent.

He was a natural at diving into the underworld - smart, charming, handsome, relaxed - and he treated these new relationships like a chess game. Wittman also honed his undercover skill set. Wittman followed up by enrolling in a course at the Barnes Foundation, where he 'learned how to tell the difference between works by Renoir and Manet, or Gauguin and Cézanne.' He was developing a niche expertise. It was the largest property crime in U.S. Then, in 1990, 13 works were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, including a Vermeer. It was a lesson to Wittman: Stealing art is easier than selling stolen art. He stashed it under a water pipe in a paper bag. But the thief didn't know what to do with the Rodin. The agents tracked the 1860s bronze to a man who had previously robbed liquor stores - that is, until a friend who worked at an auction house told him how much fine art was worth. Do you know anyone who is 400 years old? Cultural property is permanent. I asked him why it was so important to recover these stolen artworks, and he answered, 'The Rembrandt I recovered was 400 years old. He was tanned, with silver hair and a smoky voice. At that time, there were no published photographs of Wittman, because of the nature of his work.

He picked me up in a black, unmarked Grand Prix at a Holiday Inn and we drove to the Eastern Field Division of the FBI.

I visited him in Philadelphia a few months before his exit from the bureau.

He said it was like recovering a lost child.īy the time he retired in the fall of 2008, Wittman was an international legend. At the hotel, when Wittman gave the signal, a Danish SWAT team rushed into the room while the agent cradled the stolen Rembrandt. The veteran Federal Bureau of Investigation undercover agent was there to trade it for a Rembrandt self-portrait stolen from the Swedish National Museum in 2000, in a Hollywood-worthy armed robbery that involved guns, grenades and a getaway boat. The pinnacle of Robert Wittman's career unfolded in 2005, in a small hotel room in Copenhagen, where he arrived with a bag filled with $250,000 in cash.

Priceless wittman