On Sunday, the London police announced the arrest of another person On Friday, a work of art created by Banksy was stolen under the stunned gaze of passers-byshortly after it was claimed by a mysterious British street artist, AFP reported Agerpres.

The work, which depicts three drone-like aircraft painted on a STOP road sign, appeared at a junction in Peckham, south-east London, on Friday morning.

The mysterious British artist was quick to post a photo of his creation on his Instagram account, which is how he usually confirms the authenticity of his creations.

Less than an hour later, several eyewitnesses filmed on their mobile phones a man who arrived on a bicycle, dismantling the panel with a cutting tool, he was helped by another man. In the video, which has spread widely on social networks, the author of the theft can be seen running with the work of art in his hands.

Following the arrest of a 20-year-old man on Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police announced on Sunday that it had arrested a 40-year-old man on suspicion of “theft and damage”.

The first suspect was released under judicial supervision pending an additional investigation, which should take place in mid-March.

London police initially announced that they had not received any reports on the subject.

But Southwark Borough Council, which is responsible for road signs in the area, said on Friday night it wanted the sign back and reported the incident to the police.

The law enforcement officers invited to contact “all persons who may have information about the event or about the place where the sign was installed.”

Several of Banksy’s works, which sometimes sell for millions of euros at auction, have been stolen in the past, including the doors of the Bataclan theater in Paris, which commemorated the victims of the November 13, 2015 attacks.

Others were compromised, such as a mural condemning domestic violence, featuring a 1950s or 1960s housewife disfigured with a gouged eye and a knocked out tooth, while a man’s legs appeared to be sticking out of an old horizontal freezer, a real object, which was glued to the facade of the building on which the drawing was made.

The freezer was quickly removed for safety reasons, affecting the audience’s ability to understand the work before it was reinstalled.

The ephemerality of works of art was emphasized by Banksy himself in 2018, when his painting “Girl with a balloon” partially self-destructed during an auction, to the surprise of the public.

Through this representation, the artist wanted to condemn the “commodification” of art. But the price of the self-destructive work, later renamed “Love in the Dump”, during an auction organized three years later, increased almost 20 times, exceeding the threshold of 20 million euros.