Bond trader Jeffrey Gundlach offers US$1.7m for return of art collection
Bond trader offers US$1.7m for safe return of his US$10m collection, as movie moguls, top lawyers and actors wonder who will be targeted next
Even by Hollywood standards, the audacious art heist from the home of a wealthy Los Angeles money man is an intriguing whodunit.
Jeffrey Gundlach, one of the world's top bond traders, has offered a US$1.7 million bounty for the safe return of a cherished collection stolen from his Santa Monica home last week. The US$10 million haul included some of the biggest names in contemporary art: Piet Mondrian, Jasper Johns and Richard Diebenkorn.
On Monday, Gundlach took the unusual step of holding a news conference in Los Angeles to announce one of the highest rewards on record for the return of stolen art. He set aside US$1 million of the reward money for a Mondrian piece, which one art-theft expert said was the most offered for a single painting.
The biggest unanswered question: was the caper the work of sophisticated art thieves or street burglars who couldn't tell a Renoir from a Rockwell? The theft has shaken the Southern California art world, as movie moguls, pop stars, actors and star lawyers wonder whether it could happen to them.
"Everybody's talking about it; the buzz is out there," said Cheryl Perkey, a Los Angeles art consultant to wealthy collectors and celebrities. "People who have valuable collections, that's always in the back of their mind, the safety of their collections."
Gundlach gave few details about the crime, which he said he discovered after returning from a business trip to New York. In addition to the art, the thieves made off with expensive watches, rare bottles of wine and even his red 2010 Porsche Carrera.
His seven-figure reward has only added to the frenzy. It's believed to be topped only by the US$5 million that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston offered for the return of US$300 million worth of art stolen in a 1990 robbery. The paintings, which include three Rembrandts, are still missing and the thieves have never been caught.