"Reuters uncovered the NYPD report 24 years later. No rat, just a rat-faced Banksy scaling a Manhattan brownstone to deface a Marc Jacobs poster back in 2000. This wasn't a piece of expertly stencilled political art, it was a clumsy attempt to paint goofy buck teeth on the implausibly perfect face of a male model. The cops caught him in the wee hours of Saturday morning and he obviously wasn't clear-headed enough to do what rogue street artists always do in these situations – sign a fake name to a confession to avoid a felony charge. He signed the confession Robin Gunningham and copped a $310 US fine for disorderly conduct."
"So a really long (8,000-word) investigation by Reuters claims it has discovered the elusive street artist's true identity, which backs up claims made by the Mail on Sunday British tabloid almost two decades ago that he is a 52-year-old Bristol-born man called Robin Gunningham, now going by the name of David Jones."
"Previous reports suggested that Robert Del Naja, the co-founder of Massive Attack – a pioneer in trip-hop, which is a music genre that also has its roots in Bristol – was Banksy. Now it seems that Naja is Gunningham's secret partner/enabler/scout/gatekeeper."
Reuters conducted an 8,000-word investigation identifying street artist Banksy as Robin Gunningham, a 52-year-old Bristol-born man now using the name David Jones. This corroborates claims made by the Mail on Sunday nearly two decades ago. Previous speculation suggested Massive Attack co-founder Robert Del Naja was Banksy, but evidence now indicates Del Naja is Gunningham's partner and enabler. Reuters uncovered a 2000 NYPD arrest report documenting Gunningham's arrest for defacing a Marc Jacobs advertisement in Manhattan, where he signed his real name to the confession rather than using an alias, resulting in a $310 fine for disorderly conduct. The investigation employed reverse forensic methods to trace connections and verify the identity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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