New video of 1990 Boston art heist released

Released on Thursday, the video is a composite of black-and-white surveillance footage made by two museum cameras 24 hours before the heist.

The FBI has released never-before-seen surveillance video in an attempt to solve the 25-year-old mystery of the theft of 13 works of art from the Gardner Museum in Boston.

Law enforcement officials are still seeking the public’s assistance in identifying an unauthorized visitor to the museum the night before the theft, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

The similar circumstances of what’s shown on the video and what happened the night of the robbery – including the man entering through the same rear door as the thieves – have raised questions about whether the man was practicing for the actual robbery.

According to the Gardner museum’s website, Abath “broke protocol” by allowing the men to enter, though Abath claimed that he didn’t know the museum’s policy against letting in uninvited guests applied to police officers.

The video is dated March 17, 1990 at approximately 12:49 a.m.-almost exactly the same time the museum was robbed the following day.

HANDOUT/REUTERS The FBI has released this 1990 video showing an unauthorized visitor at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, site of one of the biggest art heists in U.S. history.

The security guard who let the thieves in and his colleague were tied up, before the raiders cleared the museum of a string of valuable paintings including masterpieces by Rembrandt, Degas and Manet.

The unidentified man can be seen climbing out of the compact auto and being allowed inside by a guard.

The museum has offered a million reward for information that leads directly to the recovery of all of the stolen items in good condition.

In the early morning of March 18, 1990, two people dressed in Boston police uniforms entered the museum and made off with 13 works of art, including pieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet.

The stolen artwork includes Vermeer’s “The Concert” and Rembrandt’s “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee“.

No one has been charged in connection with the theft, and none of the paintings have been found. In 2013, the FBI said members of an East Coast crime organization orchestrated the daring theft and then tried selling a share of their $500 million haul in Philadelphia a decade ago but they refused to divulge names.

Due to a quirk in Gardner’s will, the empty frames from which the paintings were cut still hang on the museum’s walls. “With the public’s help, we may be able to develop new information that could lead to the recovery of these invaluable works of art”, Ortiz said.

No weapons were seen during the robbery and no panic button was activated.

In Thursday’s statement, officials didn’t say why they hadn’t released the footage before.