FBI Special Agent and Art Crime F...
FBI Special Agent and Art Crime Founder Robert Wittman on Stolen Art, Lies, and the Gardner Heist

Roborant Review by Hugh Leeman

Episode notes

He spent two decades pretending to be someone he wasn't — and recovered over $300 million in stolen art doing it.

In this episode, host Hugh Leeman sits down with Robert Wittman, the founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team and the author of the bestselling memoir Priceless, for a riveting conversation about the psychology of going undercover, the art market's underworld, and what it costs to live a lie for a living.

Working under the alter ego "Bob Clay," Wittman infiltrated criminal networks from Miami to Madrid to Paris, recovering Rembrandts, Goyas, Picassos, a $35 million Rembrandt self-portrait, an ancient Moche backflap said to be cursed, and Geronimo's eagle-feather war bonnet. He explains the tradecraft of ingratiation and mirroring, why the best weapon in any deal is a good mind, and the night he sat across from Corsican ... 

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Keywords
Robert Wittman, Bob Wittman, FBI Art Crime Team, Priceless book, art theft, art crime, undercover FBI agent, stolen art recovery, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, Gardner heist, Salvator Mundi, The Lost Leonardo, Leonardo da Vinci, Hugh Leeman