THE ART OF THE STEAL

From the archives of Scotland Yard, the FBI, and Interpol — the true stories of the most extraordinary thefts ever committed.

What does it take to steal half a billion dollars in art from a Boston museum — and never be caught? To tunnel 256 feet beneath a city, defeat a steel-reinforced vault from below, and vanish before Monday morning? To hijack a plane, demand $200,000 in ransom, and leap into a November night — never to be seen again?

The Art of the Steal presents fourteen of the most audacious, sophisticated, and breathtaking heists in recorded history — drawn from court transcripts, FBI case files, Interpol intelligence assessments, and decades of investigative journalism. These are the crimes that confounded Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the finest forensic minds in the world. Some remain unsolved to this day.

Inside you will find:

• D.B. Cooper — the only unsolved air piracy case in US history, fifty years cold
• The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — $500 million in Rembrandts and Vermeers, gone in 81 minutes, never recovered
• The Fortaleza Tunnel — 25 men, 3 months, 256 feet of hand-dug tunnel, $70 million in untraceable cash
• Hatton Garden — retired pensioners, a borrowed bus pass, and the largest burglary in English legal history
• The Baghdad Bank Job — $282 million stolen by the guards assigned to protect it — the Guinness World Record holder for largest cash robbery in history
• The Baker Street Burglary — and the government D-Notice that silenced the press immediately afterward
• And nine more cases, each documented from primary sources, each more extraordinary than the last

This is not fiction. Every detail — the smells, the mistakes, the close calls — is drawn from the record. Written with the pace of a thriller and the rigour of a legal brief, The Art of the Steal is the definitive popular account of the crimes that rewrote what the world thought was impossible.