Photo by Mark Garfinkel

Nearly 20 years after the enigmatic Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, key investigators are redoubling efforts to publicize an offer of full and unconditional immunity to anyone who helps locate or return 13 stolen items valued at a half-billion dollars.

The investigators have made recovering the goods a far greater priority than identifying the elusive twosome who broke in and removed the treasures. They hope the large volume of media coverage surrounding the milestone anniversary Thursday, March 18, will help propel the message forward.

“When I first took the case the Office of the U.S. Attorney was firmly against the idea of immunity,” said FBI Special Agent Geoffrey J. Kelly, who has been on it for nine years. “It has become clear that immunity is an essential tool - it weeds out charlatans. It is important to press this point: People can come forward with proof positive and not fear prosecution.”

Proof can include one or more of the items filched during the robbery or a detailed photo of the backs of the paintings.

The eagerness to tout the immunity offer - alongside the museum’s well-known $5 million cash reward and an additional promise of anonymity to anyone coming forward - marks a unified grand strategy of sorts for a case that has endured 20 tormenting years of murkiness and missteps.

The immunity offer has been on the table for more than a year, but in recent weeks both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston have made themselves available to press home the point to domestic and foreign media.

That is a far cry from the 10th and 15th anniversaries, when there was spotty cooperation among the FBI, museum investigators and federal prosecutors and no such promise of immunity.

That was before Gardner Museum security director Anthony M. Amore, the lead sleuth on the case, forged ties with the FBI and Brian T. Kelly, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston who has long advocated the immunity idea.

Let’s make a deal

Carmen M. Ortiz, Kelly’s chief at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, said in an interview that “immunity is a significant inducement in this case, especially if someone were fearing repercussions.”

“What I would like the message to be is that immunity is there in terms of encouraging someone who is involved in concealing these paintings or being used as a conduit for their return,” Ortiz said. “It protects them from prosecution for playing that role.”

She said no document has been drawn up because “any formal immunity would be an agreement to be reached after we looked at all the particulars of the offer.”

Geoffrey Kelly of the FBI (no relation to Brian Kelly), said the immunity offer can only advance the possibility of someone legitimate finally coming forward.

“Maybe that person is mistrustful of law enforcement,” he said. “Maybe they have had a bad experience with the FBI, or they may have the attitude that the offer is too good to be true, that they are saying to themselves, ‘I’m going to be paraded before the media and arrested and jailed.’ That’s absolutely not the case.”

“If someone had come forward a week after the robbery and said, ‘I wasn’t involved but I want the reward to turn it in,’ that would stretch credibility a lot,” Kelly said. “But 20 years later, it is logical to think these paintings would have changed hands any number of times and wound up by now in an innocent person’s basement.”

In an interview, Amore said the museum is very pleased with the immunity offer and the cooperation with law enforcement. He noted, however, that anyone with information of the whereabouts of the art can also approach him.

“If someone feels uncomfortable contacting law enforcement, they can come to me directly and be assured of anonymity and the reward opportunity,” he said.

Heist called local job

Even as investigators look to global publicity to fish for clues and tips, they are hunting down leads and say they believe more and more that the most valuable of the stolen items - works by Rembrandt and Vermeer - are within a 100-mile or so radius of Boston, the museum’s home since 1903.

Amore and Geoffrey Kelly both say the crime truly looks to be a job pulled off by Boston-area criminal gangs, many of which were busily robbing fine art from museums and estates across Massachsuetts and northern New England as far back as the late 1960s.

Both heavily discounted the so-called “Dr. No” theory of the crime - the notion that it was commissioned by a “dark overlord” who now enjoys the art alone in a secret lair.

Amore traces that notion to the 1962 James Bond movie in which Bond (Sean Connery), about to dine with the nefarious “No,” is amazed to see a painting of the Duke of Wellington by Goya on his wall. The portrait had been stolen from the National Gallery in London by a 60-year-old amateur thief just before filming began.

Two probes at once

The two men said they see their current probe as “two separate but ongoing investigations.”

Foremost is discovering the location of the art or uncovering efforts by someone to possess and conceal it illegally. Secondary in importance is who committed the crime, although knowing the identities of the thieves could be helpful in determining the works’ whereabouts. Amore and Geoffrey Kelly refused to disclose details on current leads, but said some are fresh and being robustly pursued.

“While the heist itself is one of the most intriguing mysteries in Boston history - we all want to know what happened 20 years ago - the real priority now is ‘Where are they?’ ” Kelly said.

Said Amore: “We get leads and information on the whereabouts of the art and on the ID of the thieves all the time. I have to prioritize them in the order of who might actually have them before who might have stolen them.

“We would set aside a cold lead on who the thieves might have been for a warmer lead on where the art might be.”

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