"The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" by Rembrandt was one of more than a dozen works of art burglars stole during a 1990 heist in Boston.
Boston, USA - It remains the most tantalising art heist mystery in the world.
In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two thieves walked into Boston's elegant Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum disguised as police officers and bound and gagged two guards using handcuffs and duct tape.
For the next 81 minutes, they sauntered around the ornate galleries, removing masterworks including those by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet, cutting some of the largest pieces from their frames.
Source: AP
In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two thieves walked into Boston's elegant Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum disguised as police officers and bound and gagged two guards using handcuffs and duct tape.
For the next 81 minutes, they sauntered around the ornate galleries, removing masterworks including those by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet, cutting some of the largest pieces from their frames.
- By the time they disappeared, they would be credited with the largest art theft in history, making off with upward of a half-billion dollars in loot far too hot to sell.
- Now, 20 years later, investigators are making a renewed push to recover the paintings. The FBI has resubmitted DNA samples for updated testing, the museum is publicising its $5 million no-questions-asked reward, and the US attorney's office is offering immunity. Two billboards on Interstate highways 93 and 495 are also advertising the reward.
- "Our priority is to get the paintings back," US Attorney Carmen Ortiz said. "If someone had information or had possession of the paintings, immunity from prosecution is negotiable."
- Investigators say they've largely ruled out some of the more popular theories, from the spectre of a recluse billionaire art collector to the hand of notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger.
- More likely, investigators say, the two were home grown thieves with knowledge of the museum's security system — including the absence of a dead man's switch that would have alerted police once the guards became incapacitated.
- "I picture the thieves waking up the next morning and looking in the papers and saying, 'We just pulled off the largest art theft in history,"' Anthony Amore, the museum's security director, said.
- After the heavier works of art were removed from the walls, the thief in charge might have let the other thief take what he wanted.
- On their way out, the two thieves smashed their way into the security office and snatched the only visual record of their crime — a VHS tape.
- Amore said he won't stop until the paintings again fill the empty frames still hanging in the museum's galleries.
- "I don't have any doubt we are going to recover them," he said. "There's nothing we're not doing."
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