2023-12-28 15:12:00
As soon as installed, as soon as stolen! Friday December 22 in Peckham, in the South Londona new work by Banksy, created on a stop sign, was stolen around 12:30 p.m., just an hour following the artist posted the photo on his Instagram account. This week-end, two suspects were arrested.
Three combat drones in black and white once morest the red background of a stop sign: this is theobject of the crime, estimated at more than 500,000 pounds sterling and which still remains untraceable – a pacifist message which many see as a demand for ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Two men dismantling Banksy’s ‘Stop’ sign at Southampton Way and Commercial Way in Peckham2023
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© Aaron Chown/AP/SIPA
Since Friday, a video of the theft perpetrated in broad daylight is making the rounds on social networks. We see, perched on a bicycle stabilized by an accomplice, an individual in the process of quietly steal away the panel using cutting pliers under the eyes of incredulous passers-by, before run away with the work under your arm!
“We would like to recover the work so that everyone can enjoy the brilliant work of Banksy said Jasmine Ali, deputy leader of Southwark District Council, who reported the theft to police. At the same time, a new stop sign, free of any artistic intervention, was installed the same day for road safety reasons.
The investigation quickly led to the arrest of two suspects. Saturday evening, a man in his twenties was taken into police custody (before being released on bail and placed under judicial supervision), followed, on Sunday, by a second individual aged around fortysuspected of theft and damage.
The person who took down Banksy’s “Stop” sign, fleeing2023
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© Aaron Chown/AP/SIPA
Also read: The mind-boggling business of “fake” Banksy exhibitions
“Any person likely to have information on the incident or on the location of the sign” is otherwise invited to contact the authorities, while new procedures for the London Metropolitan Police investigation are expected in mid-March.
Created in public spaces, Banksy’s works are unfortunately often stolen to be resold at a high price. In 2019, the Bataclan gate, on which the famous artist had painted a tribute to the victims of the attacks of November 13, 2015, had been stolen (then finally found in Italy), just like a stencil of a rat, cut with a grindstone on a panel near the Centre Pompidou. Son Slingshot Rat, made in the mid-2000s at the foot of the separation wall between Israel and Palestine, had also been cut out of concrete and taken away, before reappearing in an art gallery in September 2022, i.e. approximately fifteen years later !
Also read: Banksy unmasked? Why the “revelation” of his identity is perplexing
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