See Footage of a Thief Breaking Into a London Gallery and Stealing Banksy’s Iconic ‘Girl With Balloon’
Officials launched an investigation and recovered the $360,000 print less than a week after it vanished from Grove Gallery. Two men have been charged for the crime
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Officials have charged two men for stealing one of Banksy’s most iconic prints, Girl With Balloon, from a London gallery. The artwork has an estimated value of over £270,000 (approximately $360,000), per the Guardian’s Emily Dugan.
According to a statement from the Metropolitan Police, the two offenders—Larry Fraser, 47, and James Love, 53—were taken into custody last week.
CCTV footage captured the break-in at London’s Grove Gallery, which took place at around 11 p.m. on September 8. In the video, an intruder is seen shattering the gallery’s glass door, taking the print off the gallery wall and running away into the night.
Lindor Mehmetaj, the gallery’s manager, tells the Associated Press’ Jill Lawless that he was “petrified and horrified” when he returned to discover the shattered door and the empty space on the wall. He alerted authorities about the incident on the morning of September 9.
Girl With Balloon was the only piece taken from the gallery, which holds more than $2.3 million worth of art, according to BBC News’ James W. Kelly and Nick Johnson. As the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad opened an investigation, the remaining artworks were removed and placed into storage.
Less than a week after the robbery, the police announced that they had successfully recovered the print. The artwork, still wrapped in a police evidence bag, is already back at the gallery. The two men charged with the theft will appear in court on October 9.
“We are very lucky, but it is very unusual to have it recovered,” Mehmetaj tells the AP, adding that robberies can sometimes increase an artwork’s price tag: “Typically when fine art and masterpieces are stolen, the financial value can skyrocket. Hopefully, it is going to be the same for this Banksy.”
Girl With Balloon is one of Banksy’s most recognizable creations. One of the earliest versions of the image—stenciled beside the words “There is always hope”—appeared under London’s Waterloo Bridge in 2002. Other versions of the stencil soon began popping up throughout the city. In 2004, Banksy sold a limited number of prints for between £75 and £150.
As Banksy’s popularity skyrocketed, so did the price of his stencils. In 2018, Sotheby’s sold a version of Girl With Balloon for $1.4 million. But Banksy had planned a surprise for the buyer: He had placed the piece in an ornate frame secretly equipped with a shredder, which sliced the image into thin strips moments after the sale was finalized. The stunt increased the piece’s value, and the shredded print sold for a record $25.4 million in 2021.
Banksy typically paints his murals in public, accessible spaces. As such, they are often targeted by thieves and vandals. Last month, a Banksy artwork painted onto a satellite dish, which featured a wolf howling at the moon, was stolen shortly after it appeared.
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