Last Friday, Dec. 22, a new Banksy anti-war art piece in London was stolen by two adult men an hour after its attribution was confirmed when the artist himself posted about it on his official Instagram account.
The artwork was placed on a stop sign located at the intersection between Southampton Way and Commercial Way. Footage circulating online shows one of the still unnamed men taking down the recently authenticated piece, with bystanders audibly exclaiming as it happened at around 12:30 PM.
The piece itself depicts three aircraft visually akin to that of the unmanned American MQ-9 Reaper drones recently sighted within Gaza airspace. In a 2017 Banksy piece named "Civilian Drone Strike," the same type of military aircraft was depicted soaring a framed drawing of a girl witnessing her house getting bombed.
Jasmine Ali, deputized leader of the Southwark council, told The Guardian that the piece "should not have been removed." She also expressed her desire to have the artwork returned so that "the community" can "enjoy Banksy's brilliant work." According to her, the theft has already been reported to the authorities.
Not the First Banksy Piece Stolen
Banksy's pieces have routinely been evaluated at astronomic prices, with one artwork recently subjected to being demolished estimated at $1.2 million. Because of this and given the worldwide popularity of the artist, Banksy's artworks have routinely been eyed by would-be thieves.
Just last year, three men, out of a total of eight convicted, were jailed after they confessed to stealing a Banksy painting that was made as a tribute to the victims of the 2015 terror attack that happened in the Bataclan stadium in Paris.
In a different theft incident that happened six months later, a group of eight people was apprehended after they had cut out a Banksy piece from a wall on one of Kyiv's houses in Ukraine.
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