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In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men disguised as police officers walked into Boston's elegant Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, bound and gagged two guards using handcuffs and duct tape.
For the next 81 minutes, they wandered 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 biggest art theft in history, making off with upward of a half-billion dollars in loot far too hot to sell.
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20 years later, investigators are making a renewed drive to recover the paintings. The FBI has resubmitted DNA samples for updated testing, the museum is publicising its US$5mil, no questions asked reward, and the US attorney's office is offering immunity.
"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."
More likely, investigators say, the two are homegrown thieves with knowledge of the museum's security system, including the absence of a 'dead man's switch' that would have alerted police. They might have been underestimated the breathtaking scale of their crime.
"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,'" said Anthony Amore, the museum's security director.
Thieves took their time
The theft began around 1.24 a.m. when the two white men, overpowered the guards, according to an FBI report.
The duo took their time. A full 24 minutes passed before they first picked up on a motion detector entering the museum's second floor Dutch room, where the most valuable paintings were seized.
Investigators believe the first nabbed was Rembrandt's iconic Storm on the Sea of Galilee, measuring about 5 by 4 feet and dating to 1633. The frame was laid on the floor where one of the thieves neatly sliced it from its frame.
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Next was Landscape with an Obelisk, by Govaert Flinck. Other stolen masterpieces included a second Rembrandt also cut from its frame, A Lady and Gentleman in Black from 1633.
At some point, the thieves found their way to a gallery on the first floor, passing more valuable works of arts, to seize a 'Chez Tortoni, a Manet painting of a man in a top hat and a departure from the Dutch paintings, all without triggering a motion detector.
On their way out, the duo shattered the security office and snatched the only visual record of their crime, a VHS tape.
In all, 13 works disappeared and 20 years later, still remains as an art heist greatest mystery of all time.
Recently, five works including paintings by modern masters Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso have been stolen from the Musee a'Art Moderne in paris. The canvases, worth a total of 100 million euros were discovered missing when it opened its doors.
Just days after iconic paintings by Pablo Picasso and Matisse were stolen in one of the biggest art heists in French history, it has emerged that a further five works, have been stolen from the home of a private collector in southern France.
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