Bruce Rubenstein discusses "The Rockwell Heist"

In
1978 seven Norman Rockwell paintings and supposed Renoir (later
discovered to be a forgery) were stolen from Elayne Galleries in St.
Louis Park. It is still the biggest theft in Minnesota history, and no
one was ever convicted for the crime. This is the story of the theft,
the investigation, and the twenty-year quest to return the art to its
rightful owners.

The
FBI suspected an inside job. Was it the scrappy working mother who
owned the gallery? The owner of one of the paintings, who had a
checkered past? Was a band of well-known and very talented Minneapolis
burglars involved? And what about organized crime, which had the
channels and expertise to fence the works or to hold them hostage?
Tantalizing threads tied the case to the theft of another stolen forgery
in New York City. But a sting operation fell short, and the trail for
recovering the works ran cold. The bureau’s search for the paintings
stopped, and it closed the case in 1987.

Gallery
owner Elayne Lindberg and her daughter Bonnie, motivated in part by
their desire to clear Elayne’s name, continued the hunt. Their story
moves to shady connections and the international trade in stolen art,
through Portugal, Argentina, Las Vegas, and Brazil, before its final
dramatic resolution.

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Bruce Rubenstein, a Twin Cities writer and editor who has covered crime and politics since the 1980s, is the author of Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong. He has received numerous awards for investigative journalism.