Man jailed for stealing Banksy’s ‘Girl with Balloon’ print in smash-and-grab London robbery
By Billy Stockwell, CNN
London (CNN) — A man has been sentenced to more than a year in prison for stealing a signed print of Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” artwork in a smash-and-grab theft from a London gallery.
Larry Fraser, 49, was sentenced to 13 months in prison on Friday for stealing the 2004 print – worth £270,000 (about $355,000) – from the Grove Gallery in the British capital’s upmarket neighborhood of Fitzrovia last September, according to London’s Metropolitan Police.
Police said Fraser had pleaded guilty to one count of non-residential burglary.
“Met Flying Squad officers worked tirelessly to identify the suspect and managed to track him to a location several streets away, where he was revealed to be Fraser,” police said in a statement Friday. “They even caught him on CCTV loading the artwork into a van before fleeing the scene.”
The Flying Squad, a specialist unit within the Metropolitan Police tasked with investigating serious organized crime, recovered the artwork within four days, following Fraser’s arrest and “covert enquiries,” police said.
Art recovery expert Arthur Brand told CNN that it was notable that the stolen artwork was a print, because these are often easier to sell than original works. “It is easier to sell a print because there are more of them. If you steal a painting, which is unique, it’s very hard to sell,” Brand said.
Speaking about the police’s response, Brand said: “It’s pretty quick what they did … It shows that if the police want to catch you, they can. There are CCTV cameras everywhere, especially in England.”
In a video shared online by police, a hooded man can be seen smashing the glass door of the gallery before climbing into the building and taking the print off the wall.
The manager of the gallery, 29-year-old Lindor Mehmetaj, said he was “completely shocked” by the robbery while thanking police for their “remarkable” response, in a statement shared by police.
Detective Chief Inspector Scott Mather, who led the police investigation, said that Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” piece is known “across the world.”
“We reacted immediately to not just bring Fraser to justice but also reunite the artwork with the gallery,” Mather said in a statement.
The iconic image of a girl reaching out for a red, heart-shaped balloon by the anonymous British graffiti artist hit the headlines in 2018 when the painting self-destructed just moments after being sold for $1.4 million.
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