Got tips? Hurry! They could still be worth $10M to robbed Boston museum

The Associated Press

BOSTON — A hot tip could still earn you a cool $10 million from a Boston museum desperate to recover a trove of missing masterpieces. But you’d better hurry.

Midnight Dec. 31 is the deadline to collect a doubled reward being offered for information leading to the recovery of 13 works worth an estimated $500 million — including paintings by Degas, Manet, Rembrandt and Vermeer — stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. So far, no takers. That’s a big disappointment to the museum and the FBI, which still hasn’t managed to solve the largest art heist in U.S. history. Both had hoped the enhanced reward would spur a flurry of fresh leads. Instead, it has been like watching paint dry.

“Right now we’re laser-focused on this deadline,” said museum spokeswoman Kathy Sharpless. “Clearly there’s a sense of urgency on our part.We want our paintings back.”

A look at the case and what’s likely to happen next:

The heist

On March 18, 1990, two men masquerading as Boston police officers gained entrance to the museum by telling the security guard at the watch desk that they were responding to a report of a disturbance, according to authorities.

The guard didn’t follow museum policy and allowed the men inside. He and another guard were handcuffed and locked in the basement while the thieves made off with the art.

The missing pieces include Rembrandt’s only known seascape, “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” and Vermeer’s “The Concert,” one of fewer than 40 known paintings by the 17th-century Dutch painter.

Twenty-seven years later, there are still empty frames on the walls of the gilded museum where the great works once were displayed.

The investigation

The FBI told The Associated Press in 2015 that two suspects — both Boston criminals with ties to organized crime — were deceased.

The agency has said investigators believe the paintings moved through mob circles to Connecticut and Philadelphia, where the trail went cold.

Federal prosecutors say Robert Gentile, an 81-year-old reputed Connecticut mobster, is the last surviving person of interest. Federal agents have searched his Manchester home several times.