[♪♪♪] [beep] [♪♪♪] [indistinct chatter] WOMAN: It was Frieze week in London, which is, I suppose, the week in the London calendar, when everyone in the art world is in town, and the contemporary evening auctions are the biggest in London.

And this was Sotheby's.

[indistinct chatter] [♪♪♪] WOMAN: It was a huge sale, 60-odd lots.

And this Banksy was positioned right at the end, the last lot of the evening.

MAN: I was bidding for the Banksy, The Girl with Balloon, and it was the one that everyone connect Banksy to.

It was the year before, so I think in 2017, it was rated as the UK's Most Favorite Art Piece.

For me, you know, from a collectors point of view and a dealers point of view, it's the Holy Grail.

[indistinct announcement] The estimate being quite low, that's encourage the bidding.

And there was a lot of energy, it was a big sale.

We went up to 650 pounds.

Stopped there.

Then towards the end, I think there was about two or three bidders left.

Eight hundred thousand.

Last chance at eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

Eight sixty!

[crowd murmurs] And sold for eight hundred and fifty thousand.

[crowd applauds] And then when the hammer comes down that’s always very loud because it clearly demarcates the fact that the work is sold.

[crowd applauds] [beeping] [crowd murmuring and gasping] ANNY: It all happened in sort of like a split second.

The gavel came down.

The alarm started beeping.

Everyone attention, everyone turning around, and all the mobile phones going up.

What's happening?

Is that some sort of fire alarm?

Is someone trying to steal the painting?

AUCTIONEER: Ladies and gentlemen, sorry for having your attention.

It stopped half-way and two technicians were sort of ushered out to take it away.

And usually they would have white gloves on, and they didn't.

So there was kind of an indication that this wasn't expected.

Was this a prank by Banksy?

Is this a real Banksy?

Is this pure genius or?

It wasn't that the painting fell out because the frame was broken.

It was choreographed.

Knowing that Banksy is a great provocateur, immediately the question was, was Banksy in the sale room himself?

And it seems that he was, but again, unproven.

So this is what keeps you guessing, Who is he?

Where is he?

Is he here?

Is he, you knows?

He wasn't in the room.

But I. INTERVIEWER: How do you know?

I... Well I don't know, but I saw the person who activated the alarm.

He had a briefcase with some mechanical machines in there.

There was a man with some sort-- not disguised but, you know, dark glasses and a hat.

He was wearing sunglasses, yes.

And he was wearing a hat, I think.

[chuckles] It's like a comedy.

It's like a pastiche.

It's like a caricature.

Was this a prank?

Was this a stunt?

Or is this art?

MAN 3: It was a major art statement.

Is it the price that makes art worthwhile?

Or is it because you look at it and think: this is brilliant.

ANNY: The art world is very snobby.

To most people it's impenetrable and Banksy punches through that wall.

It's like a massive fuck you' to the art world.

It is!

Sorry, am I allowed to say fuck?

His works are support the underdog, fighting against neoliberalism and capitalism.

He created a new way of selling, marketing, talking.

He alerted the generation to the ills of the society.

Right now, Banksy is one of the ten most highly rated artists in the contemporary art market.

AUCTIONEER: And selling for eight million five hundred thousand pounds.

Congradulations.

[anvil strikes] Nobody has been that famous and yet invisible.

REPORTER: NYPD would like to arrest him.

But just have a look at how ordinary New Yorkers are responding.

Everyone's trying to own a bit of Banksy.

WOMAN: Banksy!

Hey!

Fuck off!

KAYLE: It's a sad day for people, the Banksy has been removed from the wall of the-- CROWD: Bring back Banksy!

What do we want?

Banksy back!

When do we want it?

Now!

It's just a massive all circus!

[♪♪♪] [wind blowing] [♪♪♪] 99.9% of the world's population, have no idea who Banksy is, or what he looks like.

[♪♪♪] STEVE: People think that the anonymity was a slight smart marketing trick by Banksy, move of pure genius.

And it was.

But it wasn't done deliberately.

It was more self preservation than self promotion.

[♪♪♪] WILL: How urgently he was wanted by the police, I don't know, but he was certainly painting on walls, and that's a crime.

Originally, anonymity was completely essential for him.

[♪♪♪] We all have an identity, were all given a name when were born.

That's the way society has been built.

So, refusing to reveal one's identity is in fact refusing to play by society's rules.

[♪♪♪] [crowd cheering] Banksy shows that if you do want to be anonymous, you can.

STEVE: He is probably in the Kardassian age, the only person that doesn't want to be famous.

[indistinct chatter] He's almost kind of unofficial spokesperson for people, I mean, we all would like our politicians to speak our language, but they don't on the whole.

Deep down people feel like, he's an everyday person and people can relate to that.

He's one of us, you know.

Keep the mask as it is, then that's fine, we can project.

[♪♪♪] Today, Banksy has twice as many followers on Instagram as the Louvre.

Banksy doesn't speak to the 1%, like most contemporary artists, he speaks to 100% of the population.

[♪♪♪] From the very start, Banksy has a signature style.

There's a very ironic quality to his work which makes it immediately recognisable.

It's a sort of sarcasm, a British sense of humour.

[♪♪♪] It's easy, simplistic message that you can get when you come past on a bus.

You just pass on the train.

You're walking down the street.

They are bold enough to be seen from the moon.

[♪♪♪] STEVE: Between the humour, politics and the simplicity of the message, he managed to capture everybody.

From small children to grandparents.

It's like, it sucked in everybody.

The Flower Thrower, which he initially created in Jerusalem in 2003 is an image everyone has appropriated as a way of protesting against the violence of war.

Even if youre not aware of its original context, the image still works, because it reflects adolescent, student rebellion, and the anger young people feel.

ROBIN: Banksy is the voice, shouting out, screaming against what was happening in society.

There were more and more arrests, stop and search, there were more and more security cameras, we would be monitored, you'd be monitored through your phone, you'd be monitored on the street.

It was was him, a single voice bringing all these other voices together.

[♪♪♪] [crowd shouting] [♪♪♪] [thunder rumbling] [church bells] So, welcome along everyone to the Bristol street art and graffiti art guided walking tour where this morning you will be discovering why Bristol is the street art and graffiti capital of the UK, possibly of Europe too.

Plus, there's insights into the life and work of Banksy, not Bansky.

It's Banksy, which is based upon his original artist's name, which was Robin Banks, which is far too long, so he shorted his name down to Banksy.

And the artist we've all heard of was born from that very moment.

[♪♪♪] We don't know if Banksy was really born in Bristol but we know he's from Bristol in the sense that that's where his first tags began to appear in the 90s.

He chose the city as the playground for his work.

Graffiti represents the vandalistic essence of things, meaning an intervention without authorisation, where you leave behind what's known as your tag.

So he starts off with this vandalistic energy.

Graffiti isnt a way of communicating for the people.

Graffiti is a way of talking to your peers.

There comes a point when he starts using the stencil technique, which is a lot more mainstream, a lot more popular, in order to communicate things to as many people as possible.

Banksy moves to the capital, to London, where a greater number of people see his work.

The media is also much more powerful there.

And so when he gets to London, there's actually a much bigger impact on the whole country.

[♪♪♪] ROBIN: This young guy from Bristol spread his message throughout London.

And it was those very early stencils in London that just hadn't been seen before.

So it was like a new voice in a bigger city.

It started really in 2002.

I was sat in my photography gallery, and an art dealer who I knew came in, and he had a roll the size of this of Banksy prints, and they were all Rude coppers.

He pealed one off, put it down on my desk and said, "Do you wanna buy these?"

It was a picture of a copper holding his finger up like this, called rude copper, and I didn't get it.

Within two weeks, I realised my mistake, and then suddenly these works were taking off, and kids were going in to these this pop-up shows that Banksy would do, buying these prints, going straight back to their digs, getting on their computer, getting on to E-Bay, and flipping it off for profit.

And create this crazy market that took off at such an exponential speed, it was quite shocking to watch.

He's irreverant, and that speaks to younger people, because he's one of them, he's a part of that group.

ROBIN: And I kick myself to this day that I wasn't in early enough to understand it because I'd be a lot healthier.

STEVE: The trajectory of his career is aligned for that of the Internet, because for the first time ever, suddenly there was a tool that these artists couldn't get representation by the galleries and weren't being accepted by the museums suddenly their careers flew because they could get their work out.

What museum, a gallery in the world can bring you that kind of audience?

REPORTER: Painting walls isn't enough for Bansky anymore.

A graffitied elephant, a star of this American show.

Very quickly, he decides that walls arent enough for him and that he needs to break through the art market.

REPORTER: A step away from street art, this is Banksy's graffiti rendered into 3D.

Banksy says this is a different kind of family day out.

Welcome to Dismaland.

Enjoy.

He invents a horror version of Disneyland.

It's the absolute opposite of actual Disneyland.

In his Disneyland there are only really dark images of people dying, of migrants drowning.

In another section, it's the media being hauled over hot coals.

And in another section it's all about broken dreams.

Banksy's saying, Dont you get it?

This is what's behind Mickey Mouse, behind Sleeping Beauty's castle.

This is reality.

What makes him stand out are his scathing remarks.

He's someone who hits where it hurts, who lights fires, and after all, isnt that what being an artist is about?

[♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] STEVE: He is the most famous artist in any point of art history.

You might have Leonardo da Vinci and a couple of others might come close.

But in terms of the most recognizable artist today, worldwide is Banksy.

[indistinct chatter] Today we can say he's definitely an artist who's here to stay.

He is the Picasso of the 21st century.

The Andy Warhol.

That's not up for debate anymore.

[♪♪♪] FEMALE REPORTER: UK graffiti artist Banksy has moved here for a month and he has promised to surprise the city everyday with a new piece of work.

His canvases are cars and city walls, his fans and New-York detectives alike, combing the city in a hunt for the murals.

He basically did, you know, a gallery exhibit on the streets of New York and nothing was for sale.

That did get the city kind of Banksy crazy, like a Banksy would appear and everybody would turn up and taking pictures in front of it.

Head down a bit.

Head down a bit.

MICHAEL: Every morning there was like a new Banksy.

Which is pretty cool!

And actually, he plays with our adrenaline levels, he plays with the excitement he instils in the public, who wakes up thinking, Where has Banksy struck now?

I want to find it first.

I want to be the first to report it.

I want to be the first to see it.

Hoping we can spot it here.

WOMAN: Ok here it is.

FAN: I'm looking all around for him.

Just driving around earlier today, find this one.

So awesome.

Back then in 2013, there were a few of us who followed him.

But what was so incredible was that every day, more and more people started following him on social media.

I remember, 8 or maybe 10 days later, it was on the news on every TV channel all over the world.

Huge murals created under cover of darkness... You see crowds gathering.

You see people getting really excited about this treasure hunt.

Where's Bansky?

Where's Bansky?

That's the only thing New York City was talking about.

I haven't seen that kind of excitement in the city about something going on you know, I've lived here my entire life.

My my wife's cousin called me around 9:00-9:30 in the morning and said, you know, you have a Banksy.

I said, "Oh shit, really?"

He said yes, and I said, "That's pretty cool, let me go see."

So I walked over here and I looked then all of a sudden I see we have a Banksy.

[♪♪♪] And there's hundreds of people and I see there's news teams starting to show up.

So we took my building engineer and we've got a big piece of Plexiglas.

We came over here and then people started yelling and screaming, "What are you doing?

You're defacing you know, you're defacing the Banksy."

And I'm like, "No, no, no.

I'm the general manager of Zabars.

Zabars owns this building.

We want to protect it."

And then we got a standing ovation.

[laughing] It was like everything changed in a second.

I think it's a miracle, because he never got caught and he's has been doing it his whole career.

He's under the radar.

He's like Superman.

You just can't catch him.

"You are running up to somebody's property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art."

Graffiti does ruining people properties and is a sign of decay and loss of control.

So, the Mayor may be contentious.

The NYPD would like to arrest him.

[police siren wailing] I remember the mayor calling a press conference out of the blue and suddenly, the police were trying to find him, because what he's doing really is insulting the establishment by painting on public walls, private walls, each day.

MICHAEL: There was a catch me if you can element too and that's weird: with all the surveillance and everything else, you never saw like surveillance footage of him actually doing his work.

The public were searching for Banksy.

The authorities were searching for Banksy.

The press were searching for Banksy.

The paparazzi were hounding him.

It was worse than the British royal family.

I think that he's become so well-known that his anonymity is now something people want to get to the bottom of just for the sake of revealing his identity.

I can't even imagine what it must feel like to be Banksy.

To wake up every morning knowing that the very tenant of your existence, the core of what you are is at threat every day.

Every day, you pick up a newspaper, every day you turn the radio or television on, it could be game over.

Is the Banksy mystery over?

No one ever knew who he is.

A blogger claims to have found out who he is.

As a journalism student, I had to come up with ideas and articles and that would attract attention online.

Me being stupid, me being young, me being above an idea, I was like "Fuck it, why don't I go after the biggest story of the world?

Not like, who killed JFK?

But, something everybody can connect to, something everybody is interested in: Who is banksy?

If anyone is going to find out who Banksy is, why can't it be some guy in his pants, on a Sunday in his house, a student, typing up like a hacker!

I felt like I was a hacker.

I'm like the overweight guy, eating McDonalds, you know.

This all started on January 28th 2016.

I went to see Massive Attack in Glasgow.

The show was amazing, although I was very drunk.

I thought to myself: "Holy shit, Massive Attack are from Bristol, Banksy's from Bristol!"

It was a general consensus that they operate in the same world, and I was like: "Ok let's me see if I can find something," [♪♪♪] One of the first places that I looked at was Los Angeles, 2006.

Because that was something that really stood out to me when Banksy went into DisneyLand, and he left a kind of human crashed doll, dressed as a Guantanamo Bay detainee.

I was like: "Ok here I have a specific more or less date about Banksy".

So did Massive Attack play a concert there?

Bingo!

Massive played two concerts, one in Anaheim and one in California, Los Angeles.

[♪♪♪] Massive Attack were on tour in America, and were doing a gig at the Hollywood Bowl, in September 2006.

So yes, it does coincide exactly with Banksy's presence in Los Angeles.

That, for me, was a good starting point.

And then, in 2010 Massive Attack went on concert.

They played in San Francisco, they played in Boston.

I looked at the newspaper reports from these cities, I realised that Banksy had been there almost one day before, or one day after.

Ok man, there's definitely a connection being made here.

It makes sense.

Massive Attack comes as a one night gig in New York.

And like for the next 30 days, the city is plastered with these crazy Banksy pieces.

These kind of snippets of information, and connections just kept on being fed into me.

[♪♪♪] In 2008, Banksy left 14 stencils around New Orleans.

But in New Orleans, Massive Attack hadn't played a show.

If Massive Attack won't play a concert, why was Banksy there?

Bang!

2008, Robert Del Naja, the singer's history went to New Orleans, to give the premiere of a documentary film about hurricane Katrina.

Robert Del Naja has composed music for a documentary on the mistakes made during the crisis management of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

And at the same time, Banksy's street art started popping up in New Orleans, and one of his works depicted police pillaging a shop Both artists were criticising the same thing at the same time.

There are very shocking similarities between the two.

For example, Robert Del Naja had no qualms about showing images of migrants on huge screens during one of his concerts.

Banksy has also often shown his support for the migrant cause.

Robert Del Naja is clearly against the political situation in Israel.

So is Banksy.

So if theyre not the same person, then they at least have very similar political views.

[crowd shouting] STEVE: There was an anti Iraq war when Tony Blair was in power here.

It was one of the biggest political rallies in history in the UK, and Banksy did a whole set of placards for that, called Wrong War.

We know that Robert Del Naja protested against the war in Iraq against Tony Blair in 2003.

You really feel that at different moments in history these two people have some very strong political views in common.

I also never realised how Robert Del Naja was part of a graffiti movement.

He kind a kickstarted the movement, not only in Bristol, but even in the Uk.

He was one of the original graffiti artists, under his old moniker of 3D.

Banksy said: "3D was a big influence on me".

Robert Del Naja said: "oh Banksy is a big influence on me".

People always assume that they were friends, but no one suggested they were just talking about themselves.

He was just talking about himself, to throw people off the chase.

The turning point, or the point when I said to myself: "I've got him."

As if I had like a net, I'm running behind Banksy and I was like I got him - was in Naples.

In August 2004, Banksy left a stencil called "Madonna Con la Pistola".

Robert Del Naja, funny name, Italian name, his dad is from Naples, and he is a crazy Napoli football fan, and the first time that he attended the stadium was almost the exact same time when Banksy left the stencil there.

And that's when I said to myself "You fucking done it son."

You know, I was like, it's him.

It - is - him.

Robert Del Naja is Banksy.

REPORTER: "The world may have finally discovered the secret identity of the reknown guerilla street artist known as Banksy.

A british student named Craig Williams proposed a theory in a blog post back in January, that Robert Del Naja, the electronic hip hop trio Massive Attack is behind the international works of art."

Before I'd even finished my journalism course, I had already done the biggest thing I would ever do in my life as a journalist.

So, it's pretty fucked up, but cool by another.

[♪♪♪] During a Massive Attack gig in Bristol, Robert Del Naja denied that he was Banksy... ...before adding: Were all Banksy.

Banksy and Robert Del Naja have the same political views but if I wanted to make a joke, I could say that I share those views, which not makes me Banksy.

You can look for everything they have in common, but I dont think that's proof.

I don't think that that makes, you know, Robert and Banksy the same guy.

I mean, I would love for somebody to go deeper and say: "When was a Banksy done in a certain city and Massive Attack was completely somewhere else?

There are definitely inconsistencies when you match the dates up.

On 20th October 2014, a new stencil appeared in Bristol: The Girl with Pierced Eardrum.

And the night before Massive Attack had been playing in San Francisco.

So he couldnt actually have played the night before in San Francisco and then add a stencil on the street of Bristol.

You would never be able now to know who Banksy is.

At least 50 to 60 percent of my time was spent trying to keep him anonymous.

INTERVIEWER: How?

All sorts of things.

We do fake news stories.

We were way ahead of Donald Trump on the fake news, like.

part of it was to put out new stories, I put the website and everything's under my name, you know, lots of things we did that I'm not going to tell you about.

My years with Banksy were the best years of my life.

We lived like kings, but without any rules.

I picked out some of my favorite over the years.

This is my favourite portrait, that I have done.

I think we went from there to the city farm and did something really weird.

This was great.

This was in West London and it's a good example of him working middle of the day, that's not a quick stencil, that's not five minutes done.

That's probably an hour of him on the street, doing a piece with no one saying shit.

[♪♪♪] There was another time where we set closed off a street with cones with guys with high vest jackets, pretending that the road was closed, so he can do big piece underneath a bridge.

All sorts of various techniques.

I've never, ever known him do anything at night.

It's like an invisibility cloak: you put on a boiler suit and a high vest jacket and you look like you're supposed to be where you are.

Most people just walk past.

Between 2003 and 2005, Banksy infiltrated 8 different museums in Paris, London and New-York.

[♪♪♪] WILL: Institutions are very careful about making sure no one steals their paintings.

However, they never had any interest in people going in there to put up a painting.

So he sort of shuffled along, dressed in a sort of beard and mac and everything and put in a painting on walls.

[♪♪♪] And of course, it was Banksy who put it up, but already there was a bit of a team with him.

I went with him, so we did a dry run the day before.

And we went back the next day to do it for real.

So I had a little camcorder, so I was filming us.

We went up steps to go to get into the Tate.

A security guard stops me, says: "You're not allowed to film".

Alright shit.

It's like if we don't film it, then it's all for nothing.

I end up flicking the lens cap off the camcorder and film it all with the camera down by my hip, just hoping that there was some footage, which there was in the end.

So everything was kind of planned out with meticulous precision.

Nothing was really left to chance.

There wasn't many things that happened that weren't like thought through and planned.

It's almost part of his kind of modus operandi to choose remote areas.

They seem random but there are quite premeditated.

[indistinct chatter] [♪♪♪] Banksy is a genius of situations.

He says the right thing in the right place at the right time.

This little cat appeared amongst within ruins of the city of Gaza after a series of bombings some years ago and everyone was asking: What's that kitten doing there?

And that's when he said: The thing that's most searched for and looked at globally on the internet are cats and kittens.

Ive put a cat there because I want you all to take an interest in what's happening over there.

Rub your noses in it, look at what's happening over there.

[♪♪♪] ROBIN: The work he's done in Palestine drawn so much world attention, for the young people who would have never engaged with what Palestine is, what Israel is, are suddenly aware of this.

And I think his crusade to make that visible and to highlight the injustice that's happening there, I think is admirable.

Banksy has set up the hotel in Bethlehem as a political statement.

It's a big attraction to western holiday makers.

REPORTER: The hotel is very special because it's the hotel with the worst view in the whole world.

ROB: So it attracts these people and while they're staying there, they get to hear about the exact political situation of the Palestinian people, which isn't normally reflected in the television news, particularly well, or in a balanced fashion against the other side of the story.

Most people might have a moment of genius once in their lives, but he has them all the time.

He put up this installation in Venice, showing massive cruise ships coming into port, even though Venice is in danger of being totally destroyed.

He set up his installation in St Mark's Square.

One week later, two cruise ships crashed into each other.

Everyone went crazy.

I mean, he couldnt have guessed that would happen.

It's insane, but each time, he gets it exactly right.

We had this idea of raising money for a project to provide fresh water for one village in Chiapas.

The Zapatiste is an armed social movement who rose up against the Mexican state and against 500 years of oppression and I think Banksy felt an affinity for the Zapatiste cause as we all did.

Banksy painted some murals in those communities, did his research before he went out there, so he looked at artistic tradition that there is out there.

This was the first time he had gone abroad, and he had done painting abroad and tried to shine a spotlight on a struggle in a different part of the world.

Of course after that he went to various other places around the world.

[♪♪♪] REPORTER: Season's Greetings was the only comment from Banksy as he posts this video on line, confirming he was behind this gift to the people of Port Talbot.

At first glance the boy's playing in the snow but the work expands to reveal a burning skip and the ash it emits.

It's the kind of political messaging that is often in his work and references the impact of Port Talbot industrial skyline.

Banksy created a piece criticising climate change and which criticised pollution levels coming from industries at Port Talbot, which is a very polluted area.

And everyone thought: What is this place?

Why Port Talbot?

People started looking on a map, they started searching informations.

And that's how Banksy uses his notoriety, and it's actually a very powerful weapon.

JAMES: I imagine that's part of the excitement from his point of view.

I don't know how much exploration he does, but to find areas knowing there will be publicity and excitement, it almost forces the media then to travel to these places and explore little pockets of the UK.

So it's quite a clever concept, really, to actually enforce people to be part of his plan.

What did you guys think when you saw it for the first time?

I thought that anybody can do that.

[laughing] It shows I don't know anything about art.

But the more I looked at it and I come to appreciate it now.

[laughing] INTERVIEWER: Do you think Banksy is here today?

MAN: Is he?

INTERVIEWER: No, I'm asking you.

Do you think he's here?

MAN: But we don't know, nobody knows.

MAN 2: You could be interview with him?

[laughing] MAN: A lot of intrigue around that.

MAN 2: Yeah.

[drill whirring] [♪♪♪] So, you know, Banksy puts an art on walls, in places that he thinks there will safe and I come along and take it away.

[laughing] And that is what gives you great pleasure?

It gives me.

I mean, as I said I own about 20 originals.

And the trouble is that a lot of his artworks is got tagged or damaged by other artists.

So now it's the case of moving it into town, and then it will be permanently on display where people can just see it all the time.

Bullshit!

If someone walks into a warehouse and finds a Banksy sprayed on a gas canister, fair enough!

But if you go around in reckoning off a public wall and taking it outside of somewhere, you're just making the city a poorer place.

It's just a very twenty first century, self-centred, narcissistic thing to do.

And they should be punished.

Corporately death.

[♪♪♪] There we have Banksy going to in his new home, but it doesn't matter, because if we turn around by here, we have Banksy on my wall.

They are now moving it and putting inside the building.

That is not street art!

It's building art, not the same.

It's got no meaning downtown.

It was done here to cover the steelworks, it's got a meaning.

It should be left out on the street for everybody to enjoy!

That's why he's done it for.

Banksy doesn't do it to sell them, you know, he proves that with his painting that he shredded.

No, all they want to do is making money from it!

I will miss him now.

I will open my gate and what do I got?

[chuckles] A big hole in the wall!

Yes, that's not great.

[chuckles] That's not good.

Banksy is so careful about where pieces should be placed, and he doesn't particularly mind if they stay there only for a time.

But they shouldn't be taken out of that place for God knows how much money!

I don't know what he's doing.

Is he taking it down?

Artwork attributed to British artist Banksy was stolen at some point on Saturday night in Paris.

REPORTER: Exclusive videos of guys who decided to scale a building, cut down a latest Banksy work and-- Right now, Banksy is one of the ten most highly rated artists in the contemporary art market As soon as one of Banksy's pieces is taken down from a wall, someone sells it at auction.

I think his work is more wanted than he is.

The thieves tore off the entire door.

This stencil piece using white paint was drawn on one of the back doors of Bataclan in memory of the victims killed at the music venue on 13th November 2015 by a group of terrorists.

Having a Banksy that's taken off the wall and being sold, I just think it's morally and ethically really wrong.

For a decade, I was making money out of Banksy street works and I saw absolutely nothing wrong with what I was doing.

I recall sitting in my delicatessen, down in Kent, and I got a call from a colleague, saying: Have you seen the new Banksy?

And I was like: Really?

Another Banksy?

And by this point, I was, not famous for it but I was known, notorious, for the guy who takes Banksys away and upsets everyone.

I said: Send me a picture.

He send me a picture of this really ugly mural on the wall.

But, I saw its potential to make considerable money.

Art buff' is a an elderly lady, she's got one of those headsets on, that you go to a gallery and somebody's telling you what the artwork means, and in the front there is a plinth and the plinth is empty.

My intention was to make as much as money as I could possibly could.

I had good contacts at the Miami Art Fair, I've been there a number of times.

I had the credentials necessary and I agreed that we will try, attempt to remove the piece, with a team of guys who can pretty much move anything on the planet.

[♪♪♪] [sea gulls] I should have perhaps realized what they were going to do because they come in and start covering the area with scaffolds and chopping the Banksy out of the wall.

[drill whirring] We started at about 8 o'clock in the morning.

As the noise echoed across Folkestone, suddenly more and more people started appearing.

And it was clear that they were carrying protests placards, they were venomously against what was going on.

It felt like we were being robbed of Folkestone's Banksy, you know.

We believed it belonged to our town.

We wanted to benefit from it and to see everyday.

We could be quite smug: We've got a Banksy.

Have you got a Banksy?

It was a bit like that.

I mean, these were relatively middle-class, working-class, small town folk, who suddenly turned into these sort of harrows and monsters screaming abusers at my construction guys.

I mean, it wasn't just verbal abuse, it was physical abuse.

It was just, no, why are you taking it?

How can it be taken away?

And I think, the fact that everyone felt it has been taken away for money, was even more frustrating.

Everybody run up there, they're trying to stop it happening.

And then Robin Barton, bank-robber as he's known, the galerist, he was there walking around, winding everybody up and telling them that he had total rights to take it.

Because the more upset you are, the more noise there is.

The more noise there is, the more media there is.

The more media there is, the more value there is.

It was a long, long day.

I mean, it was fourteen hours of drilling and cutting.

We finally pulled the last piece of the wall out, around about sunset.

And off it flew, out to Miami.

By putting it in Miami, the contrast would be so great from where it originally came from: a broken down third world town of Folkestone and then you've got the glitz and glamour of Miami.

And having all the Americans staring at it was quite appealing to me.

As you came into Art Miami, there was, right in the middle, with a price tag of half a million dollars on it.

There's of course a certain irony about selling an artwork for a huge amount of money to a collector, about the vacuousness of the collecting of artwork and how value is put on art, and so on.

But no, it was painted to go on that wall, it was painted to be in a urban setting and we'd actively got involved in trying to bring it back.

Because it's an illegal act and put out there in the street, covertly, without permission, there is no copyright issued whatsoever.

The person who owns that wall, that door, that window, that floor is the owner of that artwork.

And it gives me the right, on behalf of those freeholders, to sell the works.

INTERVIEWER: So it's legal?

It's completely legal as long as, and this is the critical mess, as long as the freeholder can prove without question they are the freeholder.

But that doesn't tell you who emotionally owns it.

It's emotionally owned by the people of the town going: "This is Folkestone's Banksy.

I'm from Folkestone, it's my Banksy."

[♪♪♪] ROBIN: While I was sunning myself in Miami, and drinking I don't know what, I've got a lawyer's letter saying: We have discovered there is a greater freeholder, and that the Godden family were indeed not the freeholders of the building.

At this point, it was game over.

I was forced to dip my hands in my pocket and pay for it to me returned to Folkestone.

It's good that we've got one, it's good that we kept it.

No one can touch it now, it's our Banksy, owned by Folkestone.

Hands off.

[♪♪♪] So you can see that the whole piece looks amazing but if you look slightly close up and see that it has been chopped here.

The painting is cracked and it is where the saw came, just cut this out of the wall and that's, you know.

The thing about Banksy is the story as much as the artwork.

It is never just the painting, it is what happen afterwards, how people talk about, people demonstrating in the street, people saying that's ours and you can't take it.

So, I don't mind this cuts because I think people would be able to understand the story better with these little marks going through it.

Don't mess with Folkestone that's the moral of the story, because we love art in this community.

I don't feel guilty about anything I did in Folkestone.

And whereas Banksy clearly set his stall up, as being the Robin Hood of the art world, I suddenly realised that there I was: the sheriff of Nottingham.

I was the bad guy, he was the good guy.

Now, I watch movies.

Who do I want to be?

The bad guy.

Bansky I suppose is up here, just looking down at this little thing he made.

It's just a massive old circus.

[♪♪♪] CROWD: What do we want?

Banksy!

When do we want it?

Now!

Save our Banksy!

Society has embraced him at such point, where he's become part of the establishment.

Possibly something he'd kick against if he could, but I'm not sure that creating a prank at Sotheby's with "The girl with the balloon" is a good way of distancing yourself from all the things he dislikes.

REPORTER: A stunt like no other.

The iconic image known as "Girl with balloon" self-destructs.

A Banksy painting sells at auctions for one point four millions.

I'm frustrated that it didn't shred completely because I think a wholly shredded picture, with just bits and pieces, lying on the floor, is not worth much money.

I mean, if the buyer got these bits and pieces, what is she suppose to do?

Stick them together?

It wasn't a destructive process.

It was a change and of course, in the end, he gave the painting a new name, and a new date, and now it's a different work.

So you criticize the market but you give it what it wants at the same time.

So yes, I think I found that was a bit lame really.

Since Sotheby's, there's been a change in the public's perception of him.

Because yes, he's great, yes, he's got things to say, but his criticism of the market, which is what makes him popular and gives his artwork value, is beginning to make people wonder.

They are starting to doubt his sincerity.

After the event, we had probably around fifty to sixty inquiries on Banksy's Girl with Balloon print.

So yes, the demand went sky high, especially with Girl with Balloon.

INTERVIEWER: Does he makes money from that?

Indirectly, I'm sure he does.

INTERVIEWER: How?

I can't say.

INTERVIEWER: You can't?

No because I'm very good friends with my collectors.

They can't see me saying that, sorry.

He's becoming a capitalist like his good friend Robin Barton.

There is so much money being made, by Banksy, and by this entourage, and by his colleagues, friends that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that you become the very person that you didn't like when you started out.

You become the person sitting in a ivory tower.

Can you have a relevant voice when you are so removed from the very thing you started talking about?

He still has an agent, he as a manager.

Yes, there is definitely a lot of people working really hard to protect him.

Banksy's not the guy who put the spray can anymore.

He's a lot bigger than that.

Banksy is so famous now and he keeps putting himself in situations and doing really big things that we deserve to know who he is.

And I think the journalist who one day will reveal him will be, will go down in history books for being the guy or the girl who revealed who Banksy was.

My source decided he wanted to stay anonymous.

He is a forensic expert, due diligences, he looks through companies and the owners of companies to see the trails there.

I'd like to remain anonymous because I just don't want any kind of exposure.

This is just an itch I needed to scratch, I was just intrigued by the all thing.

I don't need any kind of hate mail for exposing Banksy because that would probably be a bunch of people who are very angry, if it turned out I was right.

[♪♪♪] ANONYMOUS MAN: Banksy has just released a documentary, Exit through the gift shop .

And it got a bit of noise at that time and then it got nominated for an Academy Award.

And he still is trying to claim that he was some sort of anonymity, which is impossible if you're making any film like that.

As soon as business is involved and you want to make some money out of that, you have to register the companies and the money has to go somewhere.

And then there is a paper trail.

So I looked up what the production company was.

It was a company called Paranoid Pictures.

And if you look through this company document on the annual return, you will find that it is actually owned by another company called Pest Control Office Ltd.

This is the company that is solely there to verify Banksy works of art, to make sure that they're not fakes and they're really actually made by Banksy himself.

So this company is the owner of Paranoid Pictures.

And if you look through the annual return here, this in itself is owned by a company called Pictures on Wall Limited.

So if you go to Picture On Wall Limited, looking through this annual return, at the time of my investigation, you can see that the sole owner is Jamie Hewlett.

Jamie Hewlett, the founder of Gorillaz.

It makes sense.

Gorillaz, Banksy is in their music video.

He is.

Yes, I just thought this is him.

Gorillaz is a fake band.

They're not actually humans.

They're meant to be this characters, which is very close to what Banksy is doing as well.

The other guy in Gorillaz, Damon Albarn has another band called Blur and Banksy made the front cover for their album.

This Blur album cover was designed by Banksy himself.

If you look at this, still hear from one of the Gorillaz music videos: that is a Banksy in the actual music video itself.

It was surprising to see that everything just, kind of, added up.

ANONYMOUS MAN: Another thing, I may be clutching at straws here, but a few years ago, when Banksy opened up his hotel, some tourist posted video footage of who he or she believed may have been a Banksy spotting.

And this person that they uncovered doing these graffiti stencils around the corner from the hotel actually looks like Jamie Hewlett from certain kind of facial similarities.

Wow!

I'm gonna reveal who Banksy is!

It was too good, the information was too good not to publish.

ANONYMOUS MAN: Since I made a bit of a noise, the very next annual return in 2017, if you look here, Jamie Hewlett has transferred all his shares to some called Marcus Samuel Chambers.

So if I was suspicious, which of course I am, there's been a reaction to my action.

It's not very kind of fun idea like using A. I. to see where people are based in the world at any one point.

But this is pretty black and white theory which you can't deny.

[siren wailing] Jamie Hewlett has made no comment since his name was published.

MARTINE: Joanna Brooks e-mailed me, she's Banksy publicist, saying: "Jamie Hewlett is not Banksy.

But she made a mistake and she spelt HEWLETT with an I, not an E. Which is wrong.

So I thought: "Is this a sneaky way of not lying?"

So if we do reveal him now and we say said: "But you lied."

She will say: "No, because I didn't spell it the right way."

If it's not Jamie Hewlett, I don't think I believe the other theories more.

[♪♪♪] I went through every single story that had been written on Banksy to get clues: where he had been, who his friends were.

There was one picture that supposedly was Banksy in Jamaïca.

And it had been published in the Evening Standard.

And then it sort of mysteriously disappeared and nobody knew who owned the copyright anymore.

It was part of the mystery around Banksy.

Finally I found someone who knew who he was.

Someone that had interviewed Banksy, that knew Banksy, that knew who Banksy was, and told me that he was called Robin Gunningham.

I first of all, I found out everything about Robin Gunningham I could: his birth certificate, his parent's names.

I did his full family tree with his sisters and cousins and relatives.

And then, I looked on the electoral roll, and all the places he'd lived seemed to be places where Banksy had lived.

So I was fairly confident when I went down to Bristol with a team of people that I worked very well with to prove it.

And I wanted to do it quickly because I didn't want another journalist to get the story.

We spoke to someone called Luke Egan who denied knowing Robin Gunningham, but he'd lived with him.

We spoke to a woman who had moved into a flat after Robin Gunningham had left, and she had discovered some old discarded Banksy drawings.

I think the final piece in the jigsaw was the fact that one of the neighbours of where Robin grew up identified that initial photograph from Jamaica as Robin Gunningham.

And I interviewed someone who went to school with him and he had a photograph of him at school and it looked similar to the picture that was taken in Jamaica.

And when I spoke to mister Gunninghman, he was laughing and smiling and saying: I can't comment.

And I said: Well, look, if your son is a teacher in Birmingham, you must tell me, because I'm going to put in the paper on the Sunday that he's Banksy.

And he just said: I can't possibly say anything.

Nobody, apart from Banksy's father, would have played games with me the way he did.

"If you are familiar with the artist known as Banksy, he never publicly shown his face.

Now though Banksy may actually been unmasked.

Who is Banksy ?

Banksy's name could be Robin Gunninggham, a native of Bristol.

REPORTER: The article claims Robin Gunningham, who is now thirty five, was great at art at school.

Banksy has a background that was posh and privileged if this article is to be believed.

He went to the school here, the Bristol Cathedral School.

It's hardly the background of someone who made his name from being hip and street.

[♪♪♪] DETECTIVE: Geographic profiling is a criminal investigative methodology.

It was designed to help prioritize suspects and manage information in a large scale serial crime case.

So if we have a serial murder, there's a pattern to where they hunt and the locations where the offender is most likely based.

I was a member of the Vancouver Police Department, and because I had a background of mathematics, I wondered about what you might be able to extract in terms of information from a pattern of crime locations.

What I'm showing right now is the top five percent of the area for the art that Banksy did while he was in New York City.

I was able to find informations of thirty one of his graffiti artworks.

So I put it in the Rigel system which I have opened here and you can see here Manhattan.

And the dark orange shows the most probable area for Banksy's base: this could be where he was staying in a hotel, or if he was crashing at a friend's apartment or condo, between Union Square park, Washington square park and it's roughly north of Greenwich Village.

Well, it doesn't tell us anything about Cunningham or about other suspects, but it would be if he were if he was still in New York, where you would probably want to focus your search efforts for him.

Now if no one tried to find out who Banksy was, well, we'd all be rather boring, wouldn't it?

This map here shows you through the red dots, locations associated with Banksy artwork.

Blue dots, locations associated with Robin G, such as where did he live?

Where did he go to school?

Where did he work?

Anything that you could associate with him.

If we have multiples Banksy suspects we could see which ones came out best.

But we don't.

So the idea is, you look at this and you see while that compares quite well.

So that elevated the probability of him being the correct suspect to a certain degree.

We're not proving anything here.

All we're doing is saying: "Here's some evidence that either supports the Gunningham theory or doesn't support it."

In the end, it supported it quite well.

"Yes, this a science used to find criminals, instead used to catch an artist, the person behind this: Banksy.

And scientists said they are 90% sure they have their man.

The spacial evidences or the artworks support the theory that he is the suspect, that he is Banksy.

Mystery solved?

Don't bet on it.

Robin Gunningham, this public schoolboy, I don't think that this person ever existed.

STEVE: I have a feeling that's another one of our fake news thing maybe.

Maybe it's not.

[laughing] There is regular speculation about his identity, probably in order to blur the lines.

I think he's probably got something to do with that.

WILL: Everyone likes to have another theory about Banksy.

There's nothing saying: "We can guarantee this is the man.

The weird thing is, like the Banksy's pieces, anybody could do it.

If Banksy gave me the stencil, I bought some spray paint, I could go out and do it.

Banksy might have operatives all over the world, maybe he's got like sleeper cells in every city.

He's almost definitely hiding somewhere amongst it all.

Maybe there isnt even one Banksy.

Maybe the mastermind is actually a whole group of I dont know, 10, 15 or 20 people.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes regarding Banksy.

Who is he?

I sure don't really care, I'm not that bothered.

So, I'm not giving the game away.

It would be like telling a small child that Santa Claus didn't exist.

And plus, I think the general public made him.

They made this folk hero.

And the last think they want is for someone to blow that myth.

It has been a very curious experience because there seems to be a sort of conspiracy to suggest that I'm wrong.

People were like: "You're a fucking idiot, you've ruined Banksy for me because now I know what he looks like".

My retort to them is like: "Do you know fucking Picasso?"

Yes.

"Do you like Picasso?"

Yes.

Do you know what fucking Picasso looks like?

Yes.

What fucking difference does it make?

I think the fact that people are upset about it, is because there's a strong political message.

They don't want to see a face that tells them that.

They want just be told by someone they don't know.

Everybody wins with him not being known.

Would Banksy have the same impact if we knew his name?

Well, probably not.

It's just like Jack the Ripper.

Jack the Ripper is one of the most infamous serial killers in history.

Maybe people call him the first serial killer, but that's not true, not by a long shot.

But he is perhaps the most famous and one of the reasons he's the most famous is: he was never caught.

[♪♪♪] JAMES: I suppose that those kind of low times people reach for the fictional world and the fantasy.

And they like to feel that there's some kind of rescue just around the corner, there's hope somehow.

Even now that he has a huge possibility of generating money, he's stayed very true to the roots that he would have grown up around in Bristol.

Which is a large community of people who are helping each other in a social and cultural way.

And the fact that he is now finding ways to benefit hundreds of people from this incredible achievement that he's made, I think, is just a fantastic story.

The renowned and elusive artist Banksy is weighing in to help a cash drop boys club in Bristol.

This youth club was another way where he said: Right, I'm gonna help them.

It was Sunday, April 13th.

it was around 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

And I parked just outside the boys club gates, and I noticed immediately in the doorway this rather amazing stencil.

As I was sitting and waiting, I couldn't really take my eyes off it, and I said to my wife, I'm like: "That looks like a Banksy."

[♪♪♪] My son came past, he rang me he said: "Dad you're not gonna believe this, I think we've got a Banksy outside the club".

I said: "Oh don't be so stupid, don't be so foolish."

I wasn't 100% sure.

I said "if it is what I think it is, then you need to get that protected."

And when I came in, got there I thought: "It looks good, it might be a Banksy."

But I mean, I don't know much about Banksys.

All I could see, this young couple, they both had their mobile phones and they were both, in effect, suppose to be looking in each other's loving eyes, and in fact they weren't, they were looking at each other's phones.

It really was quite a poignant statement about young people today that the mobile phone can be a little more important than the human being.

Somebody have had to done it, so, I thought I'd go and check my CCTV.

A white van pull up, and park just by what would be the place where the "Mobile Lovers" was put.

Two men got out of the van.

I couldn't see their faces, they have hives jackets on and they have helmets on.

They're just looked just like any work team.

A gentleman took a picture, drove off and then at 12 o'clock on the 15th is when it became known to the public, and the world basically, that there was a new Banksy for people to see.

And that's where my story began.

"In april a picture appeared here overnight created by the secretive street artist Banksy.

For the study streams of visitors coming to see the latest Banksy creation.

ROB: There has been a period of time where no new Banksy artworks had appeared in Bristol for a while, so I was very keen to see the new artwork.

I actually thought a murder being committed outside, because I had never seen so many people with cameras, taking pictures of "Mobile Lovers".

And I'm looking at and I'm thinking: "You know, this really is a Banksy.

And we left it there for about two or three days.

Are we mad?"

Change, back the other way.

Don't forget your arms, keep on moving.

Come on, you can.

Well done, keep going.

As soon as he realised it was a Banksy, he knew that he was sat on something that could save the club.

So, you gonna take out nice and slowly.

The problem with the clubs was that the government at the time, and local Council, were cutting funding to youth projects.

Boxing really is a fantastic sport.

It's something that is always done in a boxing club, ok. We use sport as a platform to engage young people.

To give them something to hang their coat on.

This is their place to grow, nurture and develop at their pace, doing what they would like to do, where they'll be looked after.

So I thought: "You know what?

I need to take Mobile Lovers out off the wall, and we gonna sell it so that we can save the club!

[sirens wailing] And then we had all of the negative press and people writing on the facebook page: "What kind of example are you setting for others?

You should be ashamed".

People have taken to twitter as soon as they heard this news today, some people are calling Dennis Stinchcombe a vulture."

"I guess that street art they do in the streets so people have more access to it, so it is a bit of a shame.

It is gone already before anyone had a chance to look at it, so it's wrong.

I started getting death threats: "What gave you that right?"

that went on and on.

And this is against a man that all he's ever done in 30 years is give to the people of Bristol, and you have got people saying: "You should be killed."

And that was the hard thing for me.

And finally, the most important thing that happened, among the months of arguments and discussions, and dialogues, and everything else, was the day that this letter came through the door.

I got a phone call from Dad, and he's like: "Sean, you're not gonna believe it, I've only got a letter from Banksy.

It was like: "Wow."

this it, or it's not it, it could be ours, it might not".

And it's almost like I wanted to read it, but I didn't want to read it, but there is now in front of me, and it's like: "oh my god!

"Private and Confidential.

Dear Dennis, I hope this finds you well.

As you know, I recently painted on a doorway near the club.

This was meant to be a small visual gift for the area.

But apparently, a financial one would have been much more useful.

I don't normally admit to committing criminal damage, but seen as it look like charges won't be brought anytime soon, you have my blessing to do what you feel is right with this piece.

I'm a great admirer of the work done at the club and would be chuffed if this can help in some way.

Your tenacity in the past few weeks has made for an entertaining spectator sport.

I assume you're familiar with the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Things may come to those who wait, but only things left behind by those who hustle."

Best wishes, Banksy. "

And of course, he signed it at the bottom.

This letter was incredibly important, and on that day, I read it.

Wow.

It was like.

[♪♪♪] I was so happy for him, because no one deserves to be ridiculed on social media, because of a picture.

Because he's seen an opportunity to save a club that he loves with every part of his body.

He will never be away from that place.

That's where his soul's gonna be, that's where his heart is now, that's where his heart and soul's gonna die.

This piece of graffiti sprayed on a boarded up doorway is now officially worth 403,000 pounds.

The money itself won't just benefit one club here in Bristol.

It will benefit up to 6 or even 8 of them.

It will go far and wide and it will touch an awful lot of people.

It is a very good new story in the city.

This was the most direct way that he has used the value of his art for a social purpose.

I think we will lose some of the magic if somebody reveals who he is.

[♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] I know exactly who he is cause he was a member of my club when he was a lad and I'm not telling you that.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

I can't!

Everybody I meet goes: I know somebody who knows Banksy.

Then, there is a few people go: I know Banksy.

But they can't tell you, really, I mean you know so.

[♪♪♪] I mean Donald Trump would love it.

Right.

He's always talking about leakers.

"Banksy has no leakers.

How does he do that?

The withehouse is loaded with leakers!

Banksy, no leakers!

Even if he wanted to come out and become Banksy.

No one's gonna believe it.