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The Accidental Picasso Thief: The True Story of a Reverse Heist, Outrunning the FBI, and Fleeing the Boston Mob
Author(s): Whit Rummel (Author), Noah Charney (Author)
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Publication Date: November 27, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 168 pages
- ISBN-10: B0F93B5PN3
- ISBN-13: 9798765188262
Book Description
In early 1969, a wooden crate containing a valuable Picasso painting titled 'Portrait of a Woman and a Musketeer' vanished from Logan Airport in Boston during a snowstorm. It was being shipped from Paris, France, to a gallery in Milwaukee, but ended up in the hands of Merrill "Bill" Rummel, a young forklift operator who worked at Emery Airfreight. He took it home and discovered the package contained the painting. Not particularly appreciating the art, he decided to hide it in his closet. Weeks later, the FBI began to investigate, and Bill and his fiancée panicked. They panicked further when they learned that the Winter Hill Mob, the Boston gang run by Whitey Bulger, had learned of the theft and was on the hunt for it too. How could this accidental Picasso thief possibly escape the mob and the FBI?
Bill's younger brother, Whit, Jr., suggested he call his father. Miraculously, Whitcomb Rummel Sr., a well-known, respected businessman in Waterville, Maine, devised a daring and risky scheme to safely return the painting without revealing who'd taken it. The bit of skullduggery succeeded without a hitch, and the Rummel trio pulled off the one-of-a-kind "reverse heist" without ever being identified.
But that's not the end of this story. Soon after its return in 1969, the Picasso mysteriously disappeared again. No sign of its whereabouts could be found. Finally, fifty years later, young Whit, the sole remaining member of the original gang, hired a private investigator to trace what had happened to it. He eventually discovered it had been part of a 1970 exhibition in Milwaukee. The owners were listed as Sidney and Dorothy Kohl of Kohl's Department store fame. Could this possibly be where the painting had ended up?
The Accidental Picasso Thief, authored by Whit Rummel Jr. and art crime expert Noah Charney, tells the complete story in all its unexpected and wonderful details.
Bill's younger brother, Whit, Jr., suggested he call his father. Miraculously, Whitcomb Rummel Sr., a well-known, respected businessman in Waterville, Maine, devised a daring and risky scheme to safely return the painting without revealing who'd taken it. The bit of skullduggery succeeded without a hitch, and the Rummel trio pulled off the one-of-a-kind "reverse heist" without ever being identified.
But that's not the end of this story. Soon after its return in 1969, the Picasso mysteriously disappeared again. No sign of its whereabouts could be found. Finally, fifty years later, young Whit, the sole remaining member of the original gang, hired a private investigator to trace what had happened to it. He eventually discovered it had been part of a 1970 exhibition in Milwaukee. The owners were listed as Sidney and Dorothy Kohl of Kohl's Department store fame. Could this possibly be where the painting had ended up?
The Accidental Picasso Thief, authored by Whit Rummel Jr. and art crime expert Noah Charney, tells the complete story in all its unexpected and wonderful details.
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