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2 men are charged with stealing a famous Banksy artwork from a London gallery

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2 men are charged with stealing a famous Banksy artwork from a London gallery
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2 men are charged with stealing a famous Banksy artwork from a London gallery

2024-09-13 22:33 Last Updated At:22:40

LONDON (AP) — Two men have been charged with burglary over the theft of an artwork by street artist Banksy that was taken in a smash-and-grab raid on a London gallery.

The Metropolitan Police force said Friday that Larry Fraser, 47, and James Love, 53, are alleged to have taken “Girl with Balloon” from the Grove Gallery on Sunday night.

The suspects appeared at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday and were ordered detained until their next hearing on Oct. 9.

Surveillance camera footage showed a masked man smashing a glass door before dashing in and taking the picture from a wall. Police said they have recovered the work, which is valued in court documents at 270,000 pounds ($355,000). Nothing else was reported stolen.

The stolen work is one of several versions of “Girl with Balloon,” a stenciled image of a child reaching for a heart-shaped red balloon. Originally stenciled on a wall in east London, the picture has been endlessly reproduced, becoming one of Banksy’s best-known images.

Another version partially self-destructed during a 2018 auction, passing through a shredder hidden in its frame just after it was purchased for 1.1 million pounds ($1.4 million) at Sotheby’s.

The self-shredded work, retitled “Love is in the Bin,” sold for 18.6 million pounds ($25.4 million at the time) in 2021.

Gallery manager Lindor Mehmetaj said he was “horrified and petrified” by the theft and grateful to have the picture back.

“We are very lucky, but it is very unusual to have it recovered,” he said, adding that the crime may have increased the work's value.

“Typically when fine art and masterpieces are stolen, the financial value can skyrocket," Mehmetaj said. “Hopefully, it is going to be the same for this Banksy."

Bansky, who has never confirmed his full identity, began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His mischievous and often satirical images include two policemen kissing, armed riot police with yellow smiley faces and a chimpanzee with a sign bearing the words, “Laugh now, but one day I’ll be in charge.”

His paintings and installations sell for millions of dollars at auction and have drawn thieves and vandals.

This summer a series of animal-themed stencils showed up around London. One of them, a howling wolf on a satellite dish, was removed by a masked man less than an hour after it was confirmed as authentic. An image of a gorilla at London Zoo and piranhas in a police sentry box in London’s financial district were both removed by the authorities for safekeeping.

A Banksy painting, Girl With Balloon, on display at the Grove Gallery in London after it was stolen on Sunday, then recovered and returned to the gallery, Friday Sept. 13, 2024. (James Manning/PA via AP)

A Banksy painting, Girl With Balloon, on display at the Grove Gallery in London after it was stolen on Sunday, then recovered and returned to the gallery, Friday Sept. 13, 2024. (James Manning/PA via AP)

FILE - A staff member poses for photographs with a print of "Girl with Balloon, 2004" by British street artist Banksy, at Bonhams auction house in London, Monday, Nov. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

FILE - A staff member poses for photographs with a print of "Girl with Balloon, 2004" by British street artist Banksy, at Bonhams auction house in London, Monday, Nov. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

Donald Trump began his first day as the 47th president of the United States with a dizzying display of force, signing a blizzard of executive orders that signaled his desire to remake American institutions while also pardoning nearly all of his supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Here's the latest:

He pledged to remove more than 1,000 presidential appointees “who are not aligned with our vision.”

In a post on his TruthSocial platform, Trump dismissed chef and humanitarian Jose Andres from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, Ret. Gen. Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, former State Dept. official Brian Hook from the board of the Wilson Center, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council.

“YOUR’E FIRED!” he wrote in a post just after midnight Tuesday.

Milley, the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Trump, received a pardon from former President Joe Biden on Monday over concerns he could be criminally targeted by the new administration. His portrait in the Pentagon was also removed. Hook, who was Trump’s Iran envoy during his first term, had been involved in the Trump administration transition. No reasoning was given for his firing.

Former President Joe Biden also removed many Trump appointees in his first days in office, including former press secretary Sean Spicer from the board overseeing the U.S. Naval Acadamy.

Rep. Elise Stefanik is likely to face questions at her confirmation hearing Tuesday to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations about her lack of foreign policy experience, her strong support for Israel and her views on funding the U.N. and its many agencies.

Harvard-educated and the fourth-ranking member of the U.S. House, she was elected to Congress in 2015 as a moderate Republican and is leaving a decade later as one of President Trump’s most ardent allies.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “looks forward to working again with President Trump on his second term,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said Monday.

When she appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Stefanik is likely to be grilled about her views on the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere as well as the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs — all issues on the U.N. agenda.

▶ Read more about Elise Stefanik’s confirmation hearing

Scholz said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday that “not every press conference in Washington, not every tweet should send us straight into excited, existential debates. That’s also the case after the change of government that took place in Washington yesterday.”

Scholz said the U.S. is Germany’s closest ally outside Europe and he’ll do everything to keep in that way.

He acknowledged that Trump and his administration “will keep the world on tenterhooks in the coming years” in energy, climate, trade and security policy. But he said “we can and will deal with all this, without unnecessary agitation and outrage, but also without false ingratiation or telling people what they want to hear.”

Scholz said of Trump’s “America First” approach that there’s nothing wrong with looking to the interests of one’s own country – “we all do that. But it is also the case that cooperation and agreement with others are mostly also in one’s interest.”

Speaking in the Oval Office Monday, Trump rejected Biden’s warning that the U.S. is becoming an “ oligarchy ” for tech billionaires, saying the executives supported Democrats until they realized Biden “didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”

“They did desert him,” Trump added. “They were all with him, every one of them, and now they are all with me.”

Despite taking millions from the executives and their companies for his inaugural committee — and receiving more than $200 million in assistance from Musk in his presidential campaign — Trump claimed he didn’t need their money and they wouldn’t be receiving anything in return.

“They’re not going to get anything from me,” Trump said. “I don’t need money, but I do want the nation to do well, and they’re smart people and they create a lot of jobs.”

Some of the most exclusive seats at Trump’s inauguration on Monday were reserved for powerful tech CEOs who also happen to be among the world’s richest men.

That’s a shift from tradition, especially for a president who has characterized himself as a champion of the working class. Seats so close to the president are usually reserved for the president’s family, past presidents and other honored guests.

The mega-rich have long had a prominent role in national politics, and several billionaires helped bankroll the campaign of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

But the inaugural display highlights the unusually direct role the world’s wealthiest people will likely have in the new administration. In his outgoing address, Biden warned that the U.S. was becoming an oligarchy of tech billionaires wielding dangerous levels of power and influence on the nation.

▶ Read more about the billionaires at Trump’s inauguration

Outside the National Cathedral, just a few hours before the Interfaith Service of Prayer for the Nation, which both President Trump and Vice President JD Vance are expected to attend, the scene before was decidedly quiet.

At the Cathedral only a few dog walkers dotted the sidewalk and the police presence was low.

It was a far cry from yesterday when thousands lined up in downtown D.C. festooned in the red regalia of MAGA nation — or the security and foot traffic from earlier this month for the funeral service of former President Jimmy Carter where Secret Service vehicles could be seen at least a mile from the Cathedral.

The Senate quickly confirmed Marco Rubio as secretary of state Monday, voting unanimously to give Trump the first member of his new Cabinet on Inauguration Day.

Rubio, the Republican senator from Florida, is among the least controversial of Trump’s nominees and vote was decisive, 99-0.

It’s often tradition for the Senate to convene immediately after the ceremonial pomp of the inauguration to begin putting the new president’s team in place, particularly the national security officials.

▶ Read more about Marco Rubio’s confirmation

All the living former presidents were there and the outgoing president amicably greeted his successor, who gave a speech about the country’s bright future and who left to the blare of a brass band.

At first glance, President Donald Trump’ssecond inauguration seemed like a continuation of the country’s nearly 250-year-long tradition of peaceful transfers of power, essential to its democracy. And there was much to celebrate: Trump won a free and fair election last fall, and his supporters hope he will be able to fix problems at the border, end the war in Ukraine and get inflation under control.

Still, on Monday, the warning signs were clear.

Due to frigid temperatures, Trump’s swearing-in was held in the Capitol Rotunda, where rioters seeking to keep him in power the last time roamed during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. Trump walked into the space from the hall leading to the building’s west front tunnel, where some of the worst hand-to-hand combat between Trump supporters and police occurred that day.

After giving a speech pledging that “never again” would the government “persecute political opponents,” Trump then gave a second, impromptu address to a crowd of supporters. The president lamented that his inaugural address had been sanitized, said he would shortly pardon the Jan. 6 rioters and fumed at last-minute preemptive pardons issued by outgoing President Joe Biden to the members of the congressional committee that investigated the attack.

▶ Read more about Trump’s Inauguration Day

President Donald Trump signs an executive order to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, as White House staff secretary Will Scharf watches. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump signs an executive order to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, as White House staff secretary Will Scharf watches. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump speaks as first lady Melania Trump listens at the Commander in Chief Ball, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks as first lady Melania Trump listens at the Commander in Chief Ball, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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