Renewed push to recover stolen art

>>> decades. on march 18th , 1909 , two chiefs walked into boston's museum disguised as police officers . they bound and gagged two guards and managed to steal some of the world's greatest masterpieces including a rembrandt. and they made off with more than a half a million dollars worth of art total. now there's a new push to recover those paintings. shelley murphy is with the boston globe . thanks for joining us.

>> hi.

>> so so many years have passed. you would think that all the leads have gone cold. what are investigators looking at now to revive this case?

>> there have been a number of things recently. they have resubmitted dna that was gathered back in 1990 hoping with some new advances in technology, they may get lucky. another thing they're doing is they're trying to get out the message to people that if you're sitting on this art work, it makes no sense to hold it. you can't sell it. it's too hot to sell. come in. come on down. cut a deal. that's what they're saying.

>> you know -- that's an interesting offer. when you hear about these kind of heists, they're so elaborate in the way they play out, you wonder if it's an inside job . was that ever a part of the speculation, that they had help, or how were they so familiar with the museum and which art work to steal?

>> absolutely. what the fbi says is that about 87% of museum robberies have been inside jobs. they haven't been able to prove that. but they do suspect that whoever stole the art did have some inside information . these two thieves were in that museum for 81 minutes, a very l leisurely pace. they ripped three rembrandts off the wall. they took their time.

>> the painting you just referred to was valued at more than $250 million. the museum is offering up a $5 million no questions asked reward. shouldn't they up that? they're looking for art, that one piece alone was $250 million. do they think that will inspire somebody to be honest here?

>> what they're really saying is, you know, these artworks are really priceless. and that, you know, even though they're worth that in the art world , they're worth nothing to the thieves. they could never sell them. the only money they'll ever make on it is that $5 million reward being offered. what they are saying is they'll give immunity to the thieves. they won't be prosecuted if they bring it in. they can even do it confidentially. there's another interesting piece to this. there are a lot of suspects in this case who are now dead. there is some concern that someone could have stashed the art somewhere in a house and died and nobody knows it's there. and they're telling -- they've actually searched homes throughout new england and even abroad, overseas, going through crawl spaces, looking to see if there are hidden compartments. and they're asking homeowners, you know, to be on the lookout.

>> you're going to send off a treasure hunter reality show with this, shelley. thank you very much.

>> thank you.

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