By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
The FBI announced Monday that it has identified the people involved in the theft of $500 million worth of masterworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990.
“Today, we are pleased to announce that the FBI has made significant investigative progress in the search for the stolen art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,” Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, said in a statement. “We’ve determined in the years after the theft that the art was transported to the Connecticut and Philadelphia regions. But we haven’t identified where the art is right now, and that’s why we are asking the public for help.”
“With these considerable developments in the investigation over the last couple of years,” said Special Agent Geoff Kelly, who heads the FBI investigation, “it’s likely over time someone has seen the art hanging on a wall, placed above a mantel, or stored in an attic. We want that person to call the FBI.”
The FBI did not disclose the names.
On March 18, 1990, two men, dressed as police officers, entered the museum and overpowered overpowered security guards, tied them up, and went on to 13 objects valued at approximately $500 million. In addition to Degas sketches and Rembrandt works, they took a Vermeer painting that was one of only 36 in existence, the FBI said.
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