He's chased down and helped recover hundreds of millions of dollars of art, gems, and culturally significant property.
 
The man who formed the FBI's first Art Crimes Unit was in the Mahoning Valley for the first of three lectures. 
 
WFMJ News talked with the man who has been called the most famous Art Detective in the world.
 
Robert Wittman Founder of the FBI ART Crime Unit who is nationally and internationally known for recovering over 300 million dollars of art, antiques, gems, and even stolen gold armor from a tomb, talked with people about art crimes,  how masterpieces are stolen and recovered by the FBI agents going under cover, and working in other countries with agencies around the world.
 
He retired from the FBI and the team he started now has over 20 Agents. When it was founded in 2005 there were only eight Agents.
 
Robert Wittman Incorporated, currently provides site security for museums, conducts civil and criminal investigations for recovery of stolen property, can provide expert witness testimony and property management of different types of art.
 
We asked what was one of the most memorable works of art he recovered.
 
"I recovered a Rembrandt self portrait that was stolen at gun point from the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm Sweden. We did an undercover operation in Copenhagen Denmark," said Wittman.
 
That item was valued at around 35 million dollars.
 
Other items he recovered  are virtually priceless for their historical significance.
 
"A original copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights which was sent to the state of North Caroline in 1789. It was stolen during the civil war and it took us 140 years to get that one back, but we did that in an undercover operation in Philadelphia, added Wittman.
 
"An individual who had a stolen flag and it was a U.S. Flag that was carried in battle in 1862 by one of the very first African American regiments that were in the Army. Five individuals were shot out form under it. It was valued at $35,000, but you can see the cultural heritage created freedom for these individuals for decades to come," said Wittman.
 
The event at the Medici Museum of Art was sold out in person with people from across the valley attending to hear Wittman in the first of three lectures. Others across our country and Italy streamed the first lecture on line.
 
Wednesday May 4, 2022 Wittman will share his knowledge about frauds, forgeries and fakes, which is a six billion dollar business.
 
And Wednesday June 1st he will talk about the Stealing and Recovery of a lost Nazi Diary.
 
"The Diary of Alfred Rosemberg [German] was the Chief Civil Scientist for Adolf Hitler. ... The diary was used at the Nurenberg Trails to convict the first ten Nazis but then the diary was missing. It was stolen. We recovered that for the U.S. Holocaust Museum a few years ago. That was so valuable. No one knew what was in the diary," said Wittman.
 
"In order to sign up you can visit us on Facebook our website, go to medicimuseum.art and there will be a direct link to Eventbrite where you can purchase the tickets on line or you can pay for to watch a live stream of the lecture," said Kaitlyn Russo, Director Medici Museum of Art.