SPECULATION is now feverish on both sides of the Atlantic that the world's most valuable stolen artwork . . . Vermeer's, 'The Concert' . . . has been smuggled into Ireland by the Boston crime boss and FBI informant Whitey Bulger.

The FBI this weekend refused to confirm or deny that a team of federal agents was coming to Galway in search of the priceless painting, as has been reported by media in both Connacht and the US.

"There is an investigation into the theft of the painting, and there is an investigation into Whitey Bulger. A link between the two cases has been reported, but we don't confirm any of those claims, " a spokeswoman for the FBI told the Sunday Tribune.

The possibility of a search operation in Galway is the latest in a series of bizarre twists that has linked Whitey Bulger and the IRA to the theft of the painting from the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston 16 years ago.

The break-in occurred in the early hours of 18 March, 1990, when St Patrick's Day festivities were still in full swing. In an 80minute spree, two men managed to steal a Manet, three Rembrandts, several Degas sketches and the Vermeer from the museum. The total haul is now valued at well over 450m.

The initial FBI investigation focused on the IRA and then moved on to Whitey Bulger. It was widely believed that such a major heist could not have been carried out without the blessing . . . or involvement . . . of the Irish mob in Boston.

Then, around the turn of the millennium, independent art investigators made contact with a well-established police source in London, a man known simply as 'Colin'. He claimed he was invited to a meeting in a hotel in Dublin, where he was shown Vermeer's 'The Concert'.

This account has been indirectly confirmed by Britain's world-renowned art-crime private investigator, Charles Hill, who is convinced that there was a sighting of the painting in Ireland. Hill has been instrumental in the recovery of a number of high-profile artworks, including a Titian, a Goya, and Edvard Munch's 'The Scream'.

"The paintings are in the west of Ireland, " he said in an interview last year. "And the people holding them are a group of criminals . . . about the hardest, the most violent and the most difficult cases you are ever likely to encounter. They have the paintings and they don't know what to do with them. All we need to do is convince them to return them. I see that as my job."

Hill believes that the Gardner paintings arrived in Ireland sometime between 1990 and 1995, shipped here by Whitey Bulger himself. Last year, he revealed that he was in delicate negotiations that may lead him to the Irish group holding the paintings. "I have someone who says he can arrange for me to visit them, " he said, adding that the group, while not part of the IRA, has links to it.