FBI provides new information regarding the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist

BOSTON (AFP).- The FBI said Monday that they finally know who conducted a daring art heist in Boston exactly 23 years ago -- but the thieves can no longer be prosecuted. For two decades, the 1990 theft of 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, including rare paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer, has been one of America's greatest unsolved crimes. Now, says the FBI's Boston chief Richard DesLauriers, agents "confirmed the identity of those who entered the museum and others associated with the theft." At a news conference, he touted "significant investigative progress." But there are two big hitches. First, the thieves who hit the museum dressed as Boston police officers essentially got away with it -- because the robbery "occurred 23 years ago, the statute of limitations has run" out, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz told reporters. The prosecutor said the only likely prosecutions were over "criminal liability for anyone in possession." In addition, the FBI still doesn't know where the masterpieces are hidden. DesLauriers said it was clear now for the first time that the art had been stolen by "a criminal organization with a base in the mid-Atlantic states and New England" and about a decade ago was brought, in part, to Philadelphia. "We do not know where the art is currently located," he said, describing the paintings' fate as having been "secreted, unseen and unappreciated." Officials said they wanted to spread news about the unclaimed $5 million reward for information leading to the paintings' recovery and to appeal for tips. Ortiz also put out another piece of bait: immunity from prosecution. There is "potential for immunity to anyone connected," she said, adding that there was no guarantee of "blanket immunity without knowing the specifics." The apparent progress in one of history's greatest art thefts, also including works by Manet and Renoir, comes exactly 23 years since the thieves conned their way into the museum after hours. Once in, they tied up the two guards and "roamed the galleries," according to the account from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Only the next morning when the new shift arrived were the bound guards -- and the robbery -- discovered. © 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse
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Seven paintings stolen during World War II returned to heirs in emotional Paris ceremony

PARIS (AFP).- Six paintings that fell into the hands of the Nazis after their Jewish industrialist owner was forced to sell in order to flee occupied Paris in 1941 were on Tuesday returned to his grandson. In an emotional ceremony at the French culture ministry in Paris, Thomas Selldorff, 84, from near Boston said he was "very happy" to accept the 18th century German and Italian works which he last saw at his grandfather's Vienna home as a small child. They were sold to raise funds for Richard Neumann's passage from Paris to Spain and Cuba. "It's a great day for me. I have three children... and the paintings are going to stay in the family, in our respective homes," a visibly moved Selldorff said, speaking in French. A seventh painting, "The Stop" by Dutch painter Pieter-Jansz van Asch (1603-1678) confiscated by the Nazis from Prague banker Josef Wiener, was also handed over. A lawyer accepted the painting on behalf of the son of a friend of Wiener's wife. Wiener perished in the holocaust. Selldorff's grandfather owned over 200 works of art before the war. But he was forced to leave part of his collection behind when he fled Austria when it was annexed by the Nazis in 1938, and later sold others in Paris. The Nazis had planned to transfer the paintings to a museum that Adolf Hitler envisaged opening in the Austrian town of Linz. After the end of the war, however, they were placed in museums around France, three of them in the Louvre. On Monday, France vowed to step up efforts to return works of art stolen from Jews by the Nazis to the families of their rightful owners. An estimated 2,000 works of art are currently held in trust by France's state museums pending identification of their owners. Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said France would be taking a more active approach to identifying the rightful owners. "Until now we have waited for inheritors or relatives to trigger research procedures," Filippetti said. "I want to introduce a more proactive approach under which France will seek the owners whether or not a formal request has been made."
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

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Serbian police find Rembrandt stolen in 2006, painting already been stolen 10 years earlier

BELGRADE (AFP).- Serbian police have recovered a painting by 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt that was stolen in 2006, and arrested four people, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Rembrandt's "Portrait of the Father" was found on Monday during a police operation in Sremska Mitrovica, some 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of Belgrade, the spokeswoman told AFP. It was stolen from a museum in the northern town of Novi Sad, 70 kilometres from the capital, with three other works. Four people were arrested during the operation, the spokeswoman said. The painting, which the museum estimated was worth 2.5 million pounds (2.8 million euros, $3.7 million), was stolen in January 2006. It had already been stolen 10 years earlier but was recovered in Spain. The work is 28 x 22.5 centimetres (11 x nine inches) in size and was painted around 1630. The other paintings stolen from the Novi Sad City Museum in 2006 were a Rubens, a piece by Francesco Mola from the 17th century, and another by an unknown German-Dutch artist from the 16th century. At the time police said that two masked and armed robbers broke into the museum and tied up two employees on duty before making off with the paintings. None of the other works has been recovered. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, who lived from 1606 to 1669, is considered one of Europe's greatest Baroque painters and his country's most important.
© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse
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