Proceedings have been opened against the man who is said to have stolen a mural by the British street artist near Kyiv.
The Prosecutor General’s Office in Kyiv has launched a case against the alleged thief of a Banksy mural. The man was observed by local residents in early December as he and other men cut a picture of the British street artist out of a wall. The police, alerted by the residents, confiscated the picture and arrested the eight men. Last November, several works by the artist, whose identity remains unclear and the subject of countless debates, turned up in suburbs of Kyiv and the Ukrainian capital itself. Banksy had acknowledged the pictures via his Instagram account and thus confirmed their authenticity. The stolen graffito is a woman in a dressing gown with curlers, a gas mask and a fire extinguisher on a wall in the Kiev suburb of Hostomol.
Again and again works by Banksy end up on the art market against his intention
Banksy’s paintings regularly fetch six-figure prices on the art market. According to the Kiev authorities, the procedure that has now been initiated is directed against the man for theft under martial law. The Attorney General’s Office said that the thief, aware of the value of the work, also planned to resell the painting for profit and for his own benefit. “To do this, he brought in men who were unaware of his intentions, to whom he assured that he had all the necessary permits to dismantle the mural.” The man now faces up to 12 years in prison. He was the only one charged with theft under martial law.
Again and again, Banksy’s works end up on the art market contrary to Banksy’s intentions. In 2021, a Briton from Nottingham removed a mural from the facade of his home and sold it to a gallery for £200,000. In the same year, the owner of a house in Lowestoft, England, sold a piece of wall with Banksy graffiti for two million pounds, according to media reports.
After the picture from Kyiv was confiscated by the Ukrainian authorities, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture now wants to decide what to do with it.