A brand new Banksy was apparently stolen from a south London street on December 22nd less than an hour after it was revealed to be genuine.
The artist confirmed the artwork – a traffic stop sign covered with three military drones – was his in an Instagram post shortly after midday.
The revelation led to a stream of locals descending on the site and taking photos of the installation on their phones. But at around 12.30pm, the peaceful scene was shattered by the arrival of two men, one of whom balanced precariously on an Lime e-bike while hurriedly hacking the sign down with bolt cutters.
The artist, believed to have been born in Yate, installed the piece featuring three drones in Peckham in London. Banksy is not behind the removal.
The Metropolitan Police said there was no current investigation into the incident as no-one who owned the artwork had come forward to report it stolen. The piece on Commercial Way was included in photos on his Instagram page on Friday shortly after midday.
During his lunch break, Alex rode a Lime bike to see the piece which was then used by a man to stand on to remove the art.
“This guy comes up and grabs it, we watched in awe as he bashed it,” he said. “He fell off the Lime bike at one point. He disappeared and went away and about two minutes later he reappeared with bolt cutters and just sort of tried and tried and tried while everyone was watching.
“We said, ‘what are you doing?’ but no-one really knew what to do, we sort of just watched it happen. “We were all a bit bemused; there was some honking of car horns. I went there thinking that people want that, I wanted to see it before something happened to it.”
Another witness said onlookers had shouted at the man while he tried to take the art piece down with the help of another.
“As soon as it (the art piece) went up online a few people cycled down to it to see it straight away and just sort of hung around,” they said.
A man in his 40s was in custody on suspicion of theft and criminal damage, the Metropolitan police said. A suspect in his 20s who was arrested Saturday on suspicion of theft and criminal damage was released on bail.
Photos: PA Media