Art Crime and Billboards

Tom Moroney reporting for Bloomberg notes the FBI has taken out three electronic billboards in the Boston metropolitan area seeking new leads and information on the Gardner museum theft of 20 years ago. Some of the billboards are being donated for the cause, and it is not the first time the FBI has gone low tech in the use of billboards. So far, there is very little evidence to follow, and most leads have not evolved into anything of substance.

The article states

FBI agents have traveled to Paris, Japan and other destinations to track hundreds of leads in the past two decades, Kelly said.

Local Job

“My guess is that it was probably local guys,” Kelly said. The thieves may have planned to use the art as bargaining chips to barter for reduced punishment for future crimes, rather than intending to sell it, he said.

“There’s a very strong possibility that these guys went in to do a simple robbery and unwittingly committed the heist of the century,” he said.

The crime began at 1:24 a.m. when two thieves disguised as police officers were admitted to the museum by a security guard. The pair bound and gagged both guards on duty with handcuffs and duct tape, then spent 81 minutes choosing their loot, the FBI said.

The Boston billboards aren’t the first for the FBI. Billboards have helped the agency solve 35 crimes in the past two years, including robbery, missing persons and other cases, said Chris Allen, a spokesman.

The FBI’s Boston office hasn’t received any tips since the electronic billboards went active with Rembrandt’s work three days ago, Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman, said yesterday.

Museum officials are confident that the paintings will be returned some day, said Katherine Armstrong, a spokeswoman for the Gardner, in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. It keeps vacant spaces where the four largest of the stolen paintings had been displayed.

To read the full Bloomberg article, click HERE.