FBI TRUE

- We get this name, Boris Kostov.

He was the John Gotti of Stockholm.

Boris allegedly had high value stolen art pieces

that he was trying to unload.

- A $35 million, 300 years old Rembrandt,

stolen from their national museum.

I'm going to play the role of an authenticator

buying this painting for the Russian mob.

- Boris was a ruthless bargainer, you know,

from all his years of doing dope deals.

- It's all about the Benjamins, you know.

The money is all they were caring about.

Something went wrong.

Did I blow this case?

: In the FBI.

We make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings.

Terrorist takedowns.

We understand why people want to tell stories about us.

: Mark it. - Freeze!

FBI!

- FBI! : Action!

: But they don't know the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other

When we're talking agent to agent.

This is FBI. True.

: So it's great having you guys here today.

I appreciate you coming in.

: Cindy Coppola is a 23-year veteran of the FBI.

She worked on cases that included organized crime

and terrorism, and took part in multinational investigations

into drug trafficking and money laundering.

How did you two meet?

- Primarily we met on this Swedish museum case

when Bob was a renowned art UC, and we had a case

that dealt with stolen art.

: Special Agent Sean Sterle joined the FBI in 1998.

Based in the la field office, he specialized in gangs and violent crimes.

- What had happened in 2000, it was a heist,

and three guys went into the Swedish National Museum.

: A renowned undercover agent, Bob Wittman

helped recover over $300 millin worth of art and artifacts

during two decades with the FB.

- They went in and they put everybody on the floor.

And they had guns, which is unusual, of course,

for European criminals.

And for the next few minutes, two of them ran around

the museum and stole three paintings.

They had used these Spanish riders which were basically

tack strips to stop any police from responding.

They had set off two cars on fire

on the main roads leading to the end of the peninsula

where they would have to get to in order to respond to the theft.

Got away in a high-speed boat.

The whole thing happened in less than two minutes.

So they went and stole all three paintings

in less than two and a half minutes or so.

Two by Renoir.

One was called The Conversation.

Another one was called the Young Parisian.

And the third one, which is a Rembrandt, was a self-portrait

from 1630, when Rembrandt was 24 years old.

Renoirs were about $3.5 million a piece.

The Rembrandt was about 35 million.

The total value of that heist was $42 million.

- Works of art by Rembrandt and Renoir have been stolen

by armed robbers in Sweden.

- Did the Swedish authorities ever catch anybody?

- Yeah, they got one of the Renoir's back within a year.

At the time, they arrested ten people and put them all on trial.

Seven of them were convicted and received

fairly long prison sentences.

But the Young Parisian and the Rembrandt are still missing.

- It was about August 2004, we had a task force officer

who had an informant who said,

there's a Eastern European guy named Boris.

Here's his phone number and he's been selling

kilos of coke, kilos of heroin and boats of ecstasy,

and allegedly had high value stolen art pieces

that he was trying to unload for, around $500,000.

- Was he known to the FBI prior? - No.

So we go back, go to ACS, you know,

run up the number and we get this name,

Boris Kostov...

and run him in ACS.

Boom, you know, like the computer almost blew up.

So, you know, it's like FBI Tampa, FBI Chicago,

FBI Seattle, FBI San Francisco.

Which office didn't have a case on him?

Primarily heroin, but all kinds of stuff besides that.

Any kind of stolen jewelry, watches and also artwork.

- So you know he's a known individual.

- Right. - What were the first steps then?

- We set up doing a lot of surveillance on his street.

He lived on Winona Boulevard between Hollywood Boulevard

and Sunset Boulevard in East Hollywood.

There was lots of traffic in and out of his house.

So it looked like it's just a lot of drug activity there.

So we're getting to that point where it's like: "gosh",

you know, we need to dirty up his line

to get up on the phone, right?

As luck would have it, one of his drug runners

got caught up and was going to get deported.

This guy that we've got, he doesn't want to get deported.

He's willing to work with law enforcement.

And we're like cha-ching, you know, like "oh, my God",

here's our chance to get into him.

So we get this guy and we're going to have him call Boris,

you know talk about it on the line and set up

a one kilo buy for $18,000. - Like a buy and bust?

- No, we weren't going to do a buy and bust

because we wanted to go up on the phone.

So it's a buy-walk, right?

So we're going to buy the dope, let it walk.

Finally we're able to get the buy you know,

test it out, almost 100% purity.

And then his telephone, both his home and his cell were dirtied up.

And we were able to go up on wiretaps on both.

When you go up on the wire.

Were you guys looking for any other drug deals

that he might be doing, or what else were you looking for?

- Well, I mean, there was the rumor

that there was that art, you know, the stolen art.

So then on, on the wire, within the first couple of days

he starts talking about something that he had from

Sweden that he wanted to get out of his house.

So we're thinking, okay, now Boris is talking about this art.

He says on the line: "Hey, I'm going to move this thing out

to Palm Springs tomorrow."

And so, everybody's ears perked up.

Early that morning, you know, we're out.

Surveillance.

You know, we got about, eight, nine people.

Gary Bennett, my partner, Homeland Security,

and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

Boris comes out early, looks up and down the street,

typical drug dealer, looking for surveillance.

Then comes out with a package about this, you know, yay big,

maybe a little bit bigger than a phone book or whatnot, and takes off.

We're figuring he's going to Palm Springs, right?

But he's not, he's driving through Mid City LA.

And then he goes and parks at a house, package in hands.

Starts walking up the driveway.

And so I went running up the sidewalk

and everybody else is coming behind me.

As he's knocking on the door and I grabbed him by the back

and I'm like: "Come on Boris" you know, I turn him around,

take the package away from him.

They open up the package and there is a cable box.

And of course, Boris being Boris, he's like:

"wow, you really take stealing cable seriously, look at all you guys."

My partner Gary gets his Leatherman out

he's taken apart the thing hoping that maybe it's rolled up inside this cable box.

Nothing.

Boris is snickering laughing, you know,

like "You've got nothing. You have nothing.

Just let me go" - So at this point,

how do you then convince him to talk to you?

Therein lies the one kilo buy

walk that we had in our back pocket.

So later that day we took him back to the FBI office,

get him in an interview room, right?

And he's still smug.

And then we started breaking out the recordings

of his drug deal where he sold our informant

the kilo and it was like you could see

the blood just drop out.

I mean, he just went, like pale white and started pouring sweat.

And with his criminal history he's looking at a minimum of 17 years.

And he's like, okay, he goes:

"I'll give you all kinds of dope dealers" and whatever.

And I go okay: "let me see if the AUSA thinks that's enough."

So I go back and talk to our AUSA and then she'd be like:

"No, just, it's the painting or nothing.

Or he can just... or he's going to do the time."

And I come back: "Boris, they want something else.

You know what it is."

And he's like "what, what?"

Three hours later, he's like: "You want the painting, don't you?"

And we're like: "cha-ching. Yeah, we want the painting."

So he's like: "All right, come on, I'll take you."

At that point we cuff him back up, put him back in the car,

and he guides us to a rare coin shop in Studio City, California.

And Boris goes with the owner in the safe, and he says:

"Hey, I need my package that I've been storing there."

- So, he doesn't go in and says: "give him my Renoir?"

No, no!

I need that Renoir now, yeah.

It was wrapped up in, I don't know, six seven layers

of blankets and there it was and all of a sudden,

we were just like: "wow."

You know, it was kind of just like a thought

that there might be this stolen art.

We had no idea that it was that we'd ever get it.

But for you, being on a drug squad-- - Yeah.

- And working in drug cases this had to be, like, shocking--

- It was crazy. - Like, what do I do with this?

- Yeah, right. - Right.

- I've booked lots of dope evidence and things like that,