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Two people were arrested this weekend after Banksy's latest work – a London stop sign apparently decorated with drones – went missing, hours after the elusive street artist unveiled the work on social media.
A man in his 20s was arrested on Saturday and another man in his 30s on Sunday on suspicion of theft and criminal damage, London Metropolitan Police spokesman Callum Jones said in a statement on Sunday. He did not give the men's names.
Numerous videos and photos captured the incident in real time on Friday, showing a man standing on a bicycle, held by another man, using bolt cutters to pry the traffic sign off its post on Commercial Way in London's Peckham . He then ripped it off and ran, videos showed.
Banksy had posted his graffiti art on Instagram, showing a close-up of the sign with three drones spread across it cutting through the word “STOP.” Many Instagram users understood the images as a call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war and praised the artist for speaking out clearly on the issue.
The anonymous street artist has signaled his support for the Palestinian people and Gaza in the past, scattering some of his artwork throughout the Gaza Strip. Some of the artist's most famous works are in the West Bank: a masked man posing in a confrontational position and throwing flowers, and a girl with balloons seemingly floating above Israel's hundreds of miles of wall that separates the country and the West Bank.
Little is known about Banksy. But the British street artist and cultural journalist, whose artwork often contains political messages, expanded on that Acceptance – and reverence – towards graffiti and tagging artwork. Many of his signature images are recognized worldwide.
The artist was likely born in the early 1970s and emerged as a graffiti artist around 1990, the Washington Post reported, at the same time that Bristol trip-hop musicians like Massive Attack were becoming well known. Some have suggested that Massive Attack's Robert “3D” Del Naja is Banksy, although the evidence for this theory is unconvincing.
The artist has designed album covers and other materials for musicians, and The Art of Banksy features a soundtrack consisting primarily of British indie pop and rock.
His motives are highly valued. A version of another popular Banksy image, a girl reaching for a heart-shaped balloon, sold at auction in 2018 for $1.4 million, The Post reported. When resold – after the artist chopped it up – the work sold for more than $25 million in 2021.
Jones, the London police spokesman, said authorities were investigating Friday's theft, looking for the sign and “have since replaced the road sign to avoid endangering road users.”