London
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A person has been sentenced to greater than a 12 months in jail for stealing a signed print of Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” paintings in a smash-and-grab theft from a London gallery.
Larry Fraser, 49, was sentenced to 13 months in jail on Friday for stealing the 2004 print – value £270,000 (about $355,000) – from the Grove Gallery in the British capital’s upmarket neighborhood of Fitzrovia final September, based on London’s Metropolitan Police.
Police stated Fraser had pleaded responsible to at least one rely of non-residential housebreaking.
“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 stated in a press release Friday. “They even caught him on CCTV loading the artwork into a van before fleeing the scene.”
The Flying Squad, a specialist unit throughout the Metropolitan Police tasked with investigating severe organized crime, recovered the paintings inside 4 days, following Fraser’s arrest and “covert enquiries,” police stated.
In a video shared on-line by police, a hooded man may be seen smashing the glass door of the gallery earlier than climbing into the constructing and taking the print off the wall.
The supervisor of the gallery, 29-year-old Lindor Mehmetaj, stated he was “completely shocked” by the robbery whereas thanking police for their “remarkable” response, in a press release shared by police.
Detective Chief Inspector Scott Mather, who led the police investigation, stated that Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” piece is thought “across the world.”
“We reacted immediately to not just bring Fraser to justice but also reunite the artwork with the gallery,” Mather stated in a press release.
The iconic picture of a lady reaching out for a pink, heart-shaped balloon by the nameless British graffiti artist hit the headlines in 2018 when the portray self-destructed just moments after being sold for $1.4 million.