Original subtitles

- Hello, hello, where are you at the moment?

You're gonna love this, you're gonna be on the news

and everything, it's all legal,

there's nothing illegal about it whatsoever,

mate, if, if, if, I promise ya,

I promise ya now, it's, it's,

middle of north-central London now,

I'm at this moment sat on a flat back truck.

All right, we're gonna actually, we're gonna go

and we're gonna acquire one of Banksy's works

and we're gonna hold it to ransom.

The plan was to get it out of there,

under any whatsoever, we had no time

to mess around with it, we had to get in

and get it out, and at the time,

it was when there was a lot of terrorist threats,

it was just after 9/11, it could have been filled

with fucking Semtex, Gelignite, who knows.

- It was planned, like, very precise, yes.

Contingency plans?

I wouldn't run like fuck if it come on top,

no, not really.

- Best time to do it, when it's rush hour,

because the police cameras are busy watching

for other things, do it at two o'clock in the morning,

it looks like you're nicking a fucking statue,

do it at two o'clock in the afternoon,

it looks like you're working for a council,

you're doing a job.

I'm starting to get nervous now,

I'm starting to get very nervous, it's all on, innit?

It's an art theft, and I quite like the thought

of being an international art,

doing an international art crime.

Yeah, now we're fizzing, a bit of panic,

a bit of stress, you know.

I didn't realize then I was opening a fucking Pandora's box.

I'm AK-47, leader and front man of Art Qaeda,

we're an art terrorist organization.

We don't like to go around killing people,

we bomb it with art, we spray paint, we graffiti.

The reason I'm pissed off with Banksy is he refused

to sign my fucking print.

- Britain's most wanted artist.

- What I love about Banksy is

that you think about the message he puts out to the public.

- Stars like Brad Pitt are said

to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for his pieces.

- He's opened people's eyes to graffiti,

he's like a contemporary anti-hero.

- His work being the target of thieves.

- On the one hand, we have Banksy,

international artist, and on the other hand,

we have Andy, AK-47, Art Qaeda, on the other.

And now, I like Andy, but he's not Banksy.

- Do it, do the fucking thing,

you can get away with it,

put a bomb under a work of art.

I live in a dream world, don't I?

I'm an artist, I live in my, I live in AK-47 world.

My art is not to be bought or sold,

I don't do it for the money, I do it

because I just do it to cause fucking mayhem.

I want to be the thorn in the side of society,

I like poking a stick at the man,

because if you don't poke a stick at the man,

the man fucking beats you with his stick.

Arto political humanism, it's artistic,

it's political, and we're taking the piss.

- AK-47 is a madman.

- Okay, let's go take on the art world.

- He's a man of many hats, football hooligan,

porn star, bad boy, you know, street artist.

- He's at once charming and sensitive,

and also incredibly irritating, and obdurate, and annoying.

- I'm an art, ink art terrorist,

and I'm gonna go where the fuck I want now.

- He's a rebel, he likes to occupy sort

of whatever the risks or the edge might be of anything.

- This is what we fucking want, this is art.

- He wants to be an artist, and he is an artist

to some extent, we're all artists,

he just happens to be a piss artist.

- He's one of these people that will just try anything,

you know, and I think this street art thing just came along

and it just fell into his lap.

- So I came out of this club in Shoreditch one night,

we were looking down on the floor,

I see this white line, but we were laughing,

'cause we were following this white line,

you know, what idiots do that?

I bet David and the when they get home

and there's no paint left in the can.

Went all round up through Shoreditch,

it's across a couple of roads, I turned the corner,

and then I saw it,

that's brilliant, that is art.

Then I saw a few more, then different bits all started

to blend in, I just thought, "Wow,

this is something, this is the next thing,

he were doing things I wish I had the balls to do,

it's edgy, and it's illegal, I just loved it,

that's why I went to buy my first print."

- Turf War was Banksy's first kind of major art exhibition,

it was a great thing to be part of,

it was, it felt like a movement,

and all the cool people were there,

you know, it was like, you know,

all the DJs were there, and like,

the sort of Shoreditch twats.

- The flying coppers used to be on the bridge at Shoreditch,

I'd already bonded with that,

'cause I saw it on a regular basis.

So I went on in so I could actually buy a print of it,

I thought, "Oh, I love that." And there were two versions

of it, there were the signed print, which runs in 50 quid.

- These are the signed prints, they're 150 quid.

- And there were the unsigned print,

which was 75 pounds.

- These ones are unsigned, they're 75 quid.

- So being the man I am, I went straight

for the 75 pound print, 'cause in my opinion,

I could get Banksy to sign it for me, and we'd all be good.

When, after I'd bought the print,

I was looking around to see if he was there,

and maybe if he was there, I was gonna ask him

to sign it for me, but, you know, can't fucking find him.

- I don't think Banksy's anonymity is a gimmick at all,

I think the guy has always been very, very private,

well, then, I don't think he trusts many people,

and certainly doesn't allow many people

into an inner circle, but AK-47 is persistent.

- My friend were his driver, right, so I says

to my man, "Will you get Banksy to sign the print for me?"

The word from Banksy was, "If I had wanted a signed print,

I should have fucking bought one,

and stop being such a jackass knob and prick."

That fucking incised me, I was like,

"You cheeky twat, he thinks I'm in it for the fucking money."

And I'm not, he didn't realize I wanted it

'cause I loved his fucking work,

and okay, a bit of ego in it, nice to see someone

that signed it to me personally

by somebody who could be famous one day.

- All the best things in life are free for Andy,

who knows, but I think there might be,

there might be a monetary angle to this.

He's a sensitive little soul,

so if you started questioning him about it, he's gonna,

he's gonna put up, you know, a sterling defense.

- Flying copper, signed, sold for 12,500.

The unsigned pieces are worth between four and 6,000.

So Banksy were right, maybe I should have spent

the other 75 fucking quid, but that's not the point.

- He has an incredibly competitive personality,

keen to sort of just step in there

and not really think about the consequences.

- He drew first blood, you disrespect me

and I will follow you to the ends

of the earth to get it back.

Never underestimate your enemy.

- My favorite quote about Andy, about himself,

he went, "I'm like herpes, me,"

and I just thought, "Yeah, yeah, actually, you are."

And once you've had a dose, it can come up

at any time without announcing itself,

and it's not really something that you kind of want.

- If you get to know Andy, you don't have

to get to know him really, really well

to actually understand who he is,

because there's so many different personalities.

- I'm always reinventing myself,

I've had so many different characters,

I'm still reinventing to this day.

I started to play football,

so I became a football hooligan for quite a few years.

I got into pornography, you know,

just natural, honest pornography.

Met these guy called police captains ,

within three days I'm in a guerrilla army camp,

supplying the Korean National Liberation Army with guns.

In Glastonbury, somebody checked an E down my neck,

and that completely changed it.

- Then he was an acid house organizer,

so he did a massive party

in Wakefield under a motorway bridge.

- I was the acid house scene in Wakefield,

you know what I mean?

- Largest mass arrest in British history,

he was responsible for that.

- I ended up getting 15 months imprisonment,

which came as a bastard shock to me, to be honest.

And that time, I didn't realize

that who I am is an artist, I just thought I were different.

- Andy undertook the phases that any student would take,

starting to identify, what is it that art means for you?

- And, you know, I remember

when those two Chinese guys went

and jumped on Tracey Emin's Bed,

and instead of them getting nicked

for criminal damage, they let 'em off,

'cause they said they were Stuckists,

they were the Stuckists movement,

so I realized that if you say you're an artist,

you can get away with anything you fucking,

it's not criminal damage, it's art.

And then I realized, well, I am an artist.

I am an artist by lifestyle, not by profession,

life is my medium, I can't paint,

but I can come up with ideas I can create in my mind,

I'm conceptual, the first time I called myself

an artist was when I stole the Banksy piece.

- As far as Banksy's concerned,

the first time he spoke to me about it was an idea

that was just coming through his head,

and it was gonna be like, an appropriation of space,

in terror-tight central London,

where you could cut the atmosphere with a knife,

and there's cameras looking at you from every angle,

you can actually take space, and use it,

and transform it, and that's precisely

what his sculpture was gonna do.

When all of this was happening, he didn't have any money,

he wasn't interested in money,

money never came into the conversation

about any of this stuff, "I'm gonna make this big statue

and just put it in the middle of this city,

and I'm gonna twist people's brains,

'cause they're gonna wonder

how the fuck this thing got there."

- The idea of Banksy bringing this statue

into the middle of the city, I find that to be a coup.

That, you know, two and a half square miles

or whatever is probably the most surveilled spot

in the whole of England.

- He said it with such intent, it sort

of took my breath away, he's into this more

than I could ever even believe, and I didn't dare

to say, "Well, how the fuck are you gonna do that?

Are you gonna get fucking busted?"

- It seems like the elusive Banksy has struck again,

and this time, he's gone from stencils to statues.

Called The Drinker, it was installed overnight here

in central London without permission.

- Well, The Drinker is a representation

of a very classical piece of sculpture,

which was originally by Rodin in the 19th century,

and Banksy has, of course, totally undermined it,

stuffed a traffic cone on its head,

and undercut a millennia of all of ancient civilization

and philosophical inquiry.

- So far there have been no witnesses,

and it seems that this time, neither the police,

nor the local council will be able

to remove it any time soon.

- You've gotta get a truck, a flatbed truck,

and we've got to get a crane,

who is gonna move an extremely heavy statue on a plinth?

- Suddenly a little plan started,

a little bell started ringing

in my ear, like, ding, ding, ding.

It was a large fucking item out on the street

without any permission, so it was dumped,

it was fly-tipping, I wanted some respect back.

If I take it and say I'm an artist,

there was no, no, nothing no way anybody could stop me going

and getting the fucker.

- Andy was aware of this thing being on the street,

decided to do something about it, appropriate it in a,

you know, in a shameless, thunder-stealing exercise.

- It's a way for him to spring into action.

He's able to galvanize people to spring

into action with him.

- I shout, people fucking listen, and I'm a man that can,

I've got fingers in many pies,

I'd already got my network of connections,

over fucking 30 years of being involved

in every kind of modern cultures.

- As far as these operatives

and who was part of the organization,

it's people who haven't got the strength

to say no to him, really.

- I looked at what I'd gotten,

and I picked the right man for the job.

- Could you tell me your name, please?

- To be honest with you mate, I'd rather not say.

R2IC, mate, second in command,

and also I do logistics and a bit

of a quartermaster, you know, fix things and that.

- Art is not Robert's forte,

he can ship an AK-47 down in about a minute and a half,

but when it comes to knowledge of art,

Robert's not, he's not, that's not his bag.

- What do you consider to be art?

- Me?

A normal flipping painting is art, innit?

You know, you get a little cottage,

a bit of greenery, a fucking lake,

ducks and whatever, that sort of thing,

but circles, squares, and triangles is,

not interested me, so Link, he sat me down,

educated me a bit, Tracey Emins had a tit job,

didn't she, or something, that's about all I learned,

and Banksy's a no-good cunt.

- The art of taking the piss is basically a device

that Andy uses to capture pretty much most

of what he does, and it also gives him a license

to do what he does.

- So here I am, morning of the crime.

I didn't get to bed 'til fucking half past eight

this morning, just sat, mind going numb, like,

and then had these mad, mad dreams.

Really crazy dreams about me stuck in school,

so I have got a fucking conscience, see,

or maybe I'm just tits up.

And it's, everything's so amateurly, it's unbelievable.

I made one phone call to a friend I knew

that run a scrapyard,

and I told him I wanted a truck with a gib.

I'm employing you to do this job,

well, if it comes on top, I will fucking tape the,

go and put that in your lorry, just in case.

- I'm all right.

- Just cover it, just for parking.

I then phoned Robert, and went,

"Hey-ho, Robert, we're off on a caper."

All right, well, we're just waiting now

for the other member of the team,

and I think that might well be our man turning up now,

there he is, agent number two.

Robert's all right in a lot of respects,

but his timekeeping can be, what can we say, iffy.

- We've got to be back by three, though,

gotta collect, or we lose a step, don't I?

- Oh, we're gonna have to ,

it's a quarter now.

- What?

- Three.

- A quarter to three?

- Yeah, it's a quarter to fucking three now.

- Oh, you're shitting me.

- I'm not, it's, what have you got

to do with it?

- Just collect it from.

- And take it where?

- And look after it 'til four.

- Oh, fuck.

No, cunty fuck, I need somebody,

I can't take you, you're with a kid, Robert.

- You're kidding me.

- I can't take you with a fucking kid legally.

- Gypsies have about 30 in the front.

- Yeah, but that's fucking,

how can you plan something like this,

and then it all go so mad?

- It's art.

- It's not fucking art, it's a fuck-up.

- Yeah, I was babysitting, so I canceled one day,

you know what I mean, and the next day,

we got on with it.

- All right.

I felt the pressure from setting up in the fucking lorry.

I'm starting to get nervous now,

I'm starting to get really nervous.

- It's all on, innit?

Done some funny things in my life,

but I've never nicked a statue, never.

- It's an art heist, it's everything,

and it's like, all emotions.

♪ We're drinking his house

♪ We're drinking his house

♪ Watch out, Banksy, we're drinking his house ♪

♪ Drinking his eyes

- Oh, we're fucking up.

I've done a lot, a lot of contemplation about this,

a lot of worrying and all that, a lot of ideas.

This could be the bad bit of not planning now,

'cause we don't actually know exactly where it is.

There it is, there it is, there it is,

yeah, there it is, there, there it is,

the art, there it is.

There it is, that's the very first time I've seen it.

Mind blowing, it were like, "Wow, that's fucking good, that.

Yeah, that's fucking brilliant, I like that."

The size of it, the audacity that the bastards

could just plunk it down anywhere he wanted, I like the fact

that the council had freshly washed his name off of it,

they thought it were a legitimate statue

that had been tagged.

Is it fiberglass?

Wicked.

It's fiberglass, it's fucking plastic.

Yeah, that's just gonna lift off in one piece.

Fucking come on, me and my boys will have this.

- The aim here to get that piece without getting caught.

They just rolled up on a flatbed truck,

broad daylight, high-viz jackets on,

acting as if they were commissioned

to actually be there, I mean, that is absolutely priceless,

because sometimes you have to do things

in everybody's face in order to get away with it.

- Right, take your jacket off,

put your gas mask on.

- Why are we wearing gas masks?

Yeah, yeah, that was obviously AK's idea,

I mean, I only use things like that when I need to,

I would not use it in the middle

of the afternoon in the city.

- Why not?

- 'Cause it just looks a bit daft.

- Yeah, Rob, gas mask, where's your gas mask?

Get it on.

Our biggest fear were the police coming

and moving the lorry for illegal parking.

We had no time to mess around with it,

we have to get in and get it out.

- 'Cause all we needed was really,

was an adjustable spanner.

- That's it, mate.

- Rob, we're gonna have to keep its,

will it dust it up?

- Huh?

- Can we protect it stood up?

- What, on the lorry?

- Yeah.

During the heist, I was stood around,

just filming it, and I'm pretty good with a camera,

'cause I used to make porns, so I was quite okay

to do with one thing with one hand

and having a camera in the other.

Yeah, Rob, blindfold him, blindfold him.

- Why are his eyes closed?

- So he doesn't know where he's going,

we're kidnapping him. Hi, how ya doing,

can I ask you to little interview?

- Yeah.

- Okay, have you heard of the artist Banksy?

- Uh, no.

- Thanks a lot, I'm actually robbing it,

I'm stealing it.

- Are you?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- It's a robbery.

- Where are you gonna put it?

- Well, that's beside the point, mate,

he's the last you'll see of it until the ransom's paid,

we're gonna put him up to ransom.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah, we're ransoming Banksy.

What do you think of it, did you think I'm

an artist or a terrorist 'cause I'm stealing his work?

- I think, I don't know artist terrorists, I don't know.

- Where are you from?

- Manchester.

- Yeah, well, you're all about,

you're all about thieving things from Manchester.

- He does like taking a photo,

one taking photos and me running around the bleeding thing,

you do get a bit warm, you know what I mean?

- We've done it, innit, art robbery,

and we've done it, and we got it documented.

So I might not have a fuck E to that,

both of you deserve one, I think I'll have two.

Do you want a cigar?

- No, I'm all right, mate,

I'm gonna roll a spliff in a minute.

- Yeah, it's not gonna do it, is it?

Will you hold two the camera there for us, mate?

I'll see if I can help him.

- I'm already open,

it gives me something to do, don't it?

What's that statue there?

- Banksy's a famous artist, I think.

- Yeah?

- Yeah, they all nicked it.

- Can I pick someone and tell 'em it's raining?

- Yeah, go for it, go for it.

- We're doing the fucking.

- Is that it, is that it?

- Yes!

I am now in possession of you, Banksy!

Euphoric, euphoric, like I've nicked the best thing ever.

I was a hero, I've done what I said I were gonna do.

That's when I suddenly realized, well, this is it.

I've found my niche.

I've always been a piss-taker,

and it should be accepted that there's an art in it,

and I'm a fine artist at it.

- Yeah, it felt good, mate, it felt like,

you know, when you score a goal,

I suppose, and you're a footballer,

and you get it, all the

yeah, similar to that, I suppose.

- Well, the next part of the plan was

to let him know I've got it,

I wasn't just gonna ring up and say,

"Oh, listen, I've nicked your statue."

I'm an art terrorist, let's fucking poke the nest again.

Champagne to celebrate, I think we might as well.

I've even got that to send in a letter,

in an envelope, look, either pay the ransom

or it gets it.

- With AK-47 nicking it is just grist to Banksy's mill,

definitely pique his interest,

who is this person who would just come along

and fucking take it?

- I am AK-47, leader and front man

of the arto-political humorist group, Art Qaeda.

We have your statue, you must meet our demands.

I am AK-47.

Is Banksy.

Hi, I'm AK-47.

To be honest, I would have to be high on drugs.

Shut up, fucking hell, this is not going well.

Hi, I'm AK-47, leader and front man

of the atto-political, fucking bullocks.

Basic, basically, I've done it, I've pulled off a scoop.

- Yeah, I was on the top deck of a 38,

and when Andy calls and goes, "I've stolen a Banksy,"

I goes, "What, where, from what?"

"It's a statue," and he explained the whole thing.

- By me stealing his art, does that mean make it,

does that mean, make it, make me a fucking terrorist,

or does that make me an artist on top of his art?

- Oh, shut up, will you.

- Oh, totally out of the blue,

I can remember the phone call like it was yesterday.

- It's a lad's mag fucking story, innit?

But it's also art.

- That was it, and I was part of it, you know,

first recruit into the, the movement.

- I knew AK-47 on his own just wouldn't cut it.

And it always sounds better if there's lots of you,

if you're an organization, rather than one person.

- I think, think he wanted to sort

of broaden his horizons and make it more like a terrorist,

an arto-terrorist organization.

Um, is that the right word?

- What's the AK stand for?

Well, we bounced it around, we came up with Art Qaeda.

- I don't know "Enabling a fragile snowflake" would do much

for me, what, what is it, what is, what,

how would you enable a fragile snowflake,

that doesn't really make sense, does it?

This is the Link-y of it, isn't it?

Not enough shite in there, it needs some more asses.

Art Qaeda are the come Unstuckists.

I think he'd like that idea that,

like, you know, people around the world get this idea

of stealing art and taking the piss could be a movement,

he actually does want to bomb Glastonbury,

and sort of kill everybody who owns an Apple Mac,

but it's just in his head.

- It suddenly grew, and it did grow

into an army within weeks,

people wanted to have a, see what we were up to next.

Art Qaeda!

I kidnapped Tracey Emin off of the wall

of the Hackney Empire, she wasn't fucking happy at all,

especially when we sent it back and it didn't work.

Bildrum would unveil his new work of art,

which had an Icelandic theme to it, so we nicked it,

flew it to Iceland, and we did a big burial ceremony.

Art Qaeda strikes again, who is the next one?

Doug Fishbone, he made this sculpture,

it was just a big pyramid of fucking bananas.

I turned up in a gorilla suit,

stuck a sign in the top, "arto-political humourism."

- Which I really don't know exactly what that means,

but he's been using it for 10 years,

so it must be relevant for something.

- I'm a guerrilla outfit, you know,

I run a guerrilla organization,

and there were bananas, it was just too fucking easy.

- Suddenly, people knew this name, AK-47,

you know, especially Banksy.

- Art Qaeda, we are here, which you cannot acknowledge now.

- So there we are with this guy, who was saying

that he was holding this Drinker for a ransom.

- And that's all, folks.

We will be in touch.

We made a ransom note, I think it said,

"Help me please, Banksy," and I just put it

on one, one sheet of paper, ,

and it, it just ran like a proper terrorist thing then,

you know, and it just went like I wanted it to, really.

We're gonna issue our demands,

and see, I'll only send it when I want you.

- The money.

- Yeah, it's not the money, it's not for the money.

Attention of Banksy, that's...

I think I'll have a biscuit.

- He came up with this idea to call The Guardian,

and Simon Hattenstone was his go-between.

- Simon Hattenstone then becomes hostage negotiator,

not because he wanted to, but he was the only one

with contacts to us both.

- Yeah, it's true, it had gone.

We received a ransom letter with some pictures

of the statue, with GafferTape over its eyes and mouth,

it looked quite good, actually.

- I said, "I'll take five grand for it,"

that's what I said, I said, "I'll take five grand,"

to cover expenses and a drink out of it,

enough to buy a Banksy canvas.

- So I told him I was only prepared

to leave money in a suitcase on the condition

that they dump The Drinker in the Serpentine Gallery,

or the New Tate, or next to The Cenotaph in Whitehall.

- Cheeky fucking, if he can't fucking do it,

I'm not doing his work for him, I'm not taking the piss.

- Well, I had a think about it,

and I said I was willing to give him two pounds

towards a can of petrol, it has to be unleaded, mind,

so they can incinerate the thing.

- Fine, tell him to give me a petrol can

and sign the petrol can, and I'll do it.

- Well, my only regret was

that I thought that The Drinker

on fire would look a lot better

than my Drinker, which is annoying,

but that was my final offer.

- Banksy was like, "I'm not playing with him,

you've stole my thunder,"

seems to me like you were a right minger,

little fucking spoiled brat, and I didn't just get him

an art one-piece, I got him the front cover

and a two page fucking spread,

he couldn't have bought that publicity I got him,

so I asked him, , I thought, "Well, you know,

it'll go nice, well, thanks for that,"

again, I thought I'd done him a fucking favor.

All I'd happy with were to meet the guy from it,

and he could have had it back.

- Well, actually, I was quite glad

to be rid of him, the thing is, I only live in a small flat,

so I didn't really have the space.

- He didn't give a fuck, I've got a fucking Banksy

in my backyard that were going up

in value every fucking week.

I loved it, I loved my statue in my garden.

It were great, you know, I used

to look out my window and see it,

all the neighbors liked it.

My neighbors used to say, "I love that statue,"

you know, "It's great, that we walk past

that bit of garden and smile every time we see it."

Yeah, of course I got attached to it.

- Um, well, a scrupulous honesty is a,

is a rare commodity in the art world.

If someone had come to me then,

"I've got the drinker," I'd have gone,

"Hmm, how tall is it, will it fit in my gallery?"

If someone comes to me with some piece

of street art they removed off the street,

then all they've done is create a vacancy.

- I mean, what you have to understand is the art world

is manifestly corrupt, right across the board.

What there is is people doing the dinner party circuit

in West London, in Hollywood, et cetera,

and they want to have the best, the biggest Banksy,

it's, "Come and have a look at my Banksy."

- Obviously Banksy is bankable, he always wanted to be,

why did he call himself Banksy, robbing banks?

We were just doing a bit of bankability for him,

we're just taking his play on his name one step further.

- I started to think about covering my ass legally.

The best thing to do is be a good citizen,

go to the police and say, "Look what I've found."

- If you find a gold watch on the floor,

you take it to the police station, if you're daft enough to,

it potentially could become yours.

- So I walked into the police station,

a copper came out and says, "Can I help you?"

And I says, "Yeah, I'd like to report a found statue."

So he goes, "Okay, let me write,"

and he stood at his blotter and,

"Okay, so, can you describe it?"

It's a 10 foot statue, a copy of Rodin's The Thinker.

- It's a what?

- He laughed, just goes,

"How the fuck did you find a statue like that?"

And I said, "Look, it's by a graffiti artist,

and he's put it out there, it's a piece

of street art, I think."

"How the fuck did you get that?"

"Well, I took it in a lorry."

"In a lorry, but you just found it?"

I'm not gonna sit here and explain the concepts

and legalities of street art to a policeman,

you know, it's a little bit out of your field.

- You're fucking right it's out of my fucking field.

- And he said, "You know what, man,

I haven't got fucking time for this,

just give me the fucking details."

He says, "We've nowhere to store it."

I says, "It's okay, I've got somewhere safe for it."

He gave me a little green slip saying,

"There you go, if nobody gets in touch within three months."

- It's yours.

- Andy did what I think is a really sophisticated act,

to have gone and reported it found.

- Technically, the law being constructs,

he does own it, unless the artist came forward

and said, "Actually, I created this work of art,

"and it belongs to me by default."

But then, they can be like, "Well," you know,

"Now we know who you are, then your nicked, son."

- I felt like Neville Chamberlain, "In my hand is a piece

"of paper declaring the war with Banksy is over."

- Andy went to the police,

then the piece became legally his,

and he had it put in his garden,

and then, I understand that Banksy had a bit

of a sense of humor failure about this,

which I slightly sympathize with.

- I'm not quite sure how bothered Banksy was

about the situation, but I feel

that it may have pissed him off,

you know, even ever so slightly.

You have the impression from Andy

that he would have milked that for a long time,

he probably would have made 100 videos out of that.

- We are the revolution.

This, this is the revolution.

- I think Banksy just wanted it to stop.

- This shady funking mank started to get involved,

dodging over from the other side of the ,

he'd seen it in me backyard and he were one

of the few people that knew it was in my back garden,

and he just constantly kept hounding me about it,

and I'm like, "Fuck off, scally fucker."

So three to six months later, an old friend of mine says,

"Will you come to Rotterdam with me?

"I've got to pick up my dog."

And funnily enough, that fucking scummy,

fucking scally rings me up, "Hey,

"can we take Monday , 'cause the fucking

"are playing, I'll be in London," and I'm like,

"No, mate, I won't be back now until Sunday night."

I gets home on the Sunday afternoon,

goes to take my beloved dog for a walk,

and as I come around the back, horror.

Stolen, stolen, gone.

Striking the same pose

as his beloved Banksy sculpture,

the owner says the fiberglass Drinker has been stolen

from his back garden in Hackney.

- I went to the press, I went straight to the press,

I have to let the world know that I am the legal owner.

I put posters up round the street;

Did anybody see anything?

'cause I got the antiquities police involved.

Look, this is a work by Banksy,

it's an important work by Banksy,

could be worth up to a million quid in a few years time,

it has to be down as a stolen work of art.

So that's what they did, it's registered down,

if that piece comes up on the world market, it is stolen.

- The police accept he is the legal owner,

even though he found and took the work himself

from Shaftesbury Avenue three years ago.

- I was at an old villain's house in Essex,

and he is an old villain, and, you know,

all his friends, they're all old villains.

"Did you hear about the statue?"

I said, "Yes, of course," and he said,

"I was the one that snatched it back."

So I nearly fell over, I was like, "What?"

They did exactly the same as what he did,

they rolled up to AK-47's house, high-viz jackets,

you know, hard hats, backed up the truck

and just loaded it onto the...

- I knew straightaway what had fucking gone on,

and it took me 30 seconds to work out who, what, and why.

"I don't know what you're fucking talking about,

Linky, I don't know, it's not to fucking do with me,

hey, hey, you've got this all wrong,

you've got this all fucking wrong."

I knew I hadn't got it wrong,

I knew damn well what had gone on.

He told them that I wouldn't be there

and it was in my back garden.

- Only one person would commission other people

to take this piece of art.

- Well, it's obvious who fucking set it up, innit,

it doesn't take two and two to make that out.

- I don't know whether Banksy had it stolen back or not,

but the word is that him or his people did.

- And I got a phone call from his manager,

Steve Lazarides, he says, "Oh,

I've heard you've had the statue stolen,

oh, I'm really sorry to hear that, but we haven't got it."

But he, what he said to me was the giveaway,

'cause he said to me, "Well, you'll do all right,

you've still got the traffic cone, haven't you?"

Now, how did he know that?

- There are four basic human needs,

food, sleep, sex, and revenge.

- He's on the antiquities stolen squad,

so Banksy couldn't do fuck-all with it.

So I had actually assumed that he did

what he wanted to do and destroyed it.

Devastation, you know, I'd been cocky as fuck,

and suddenly I were devastated,

I felt like me stomach had been ripped open,

by this time, I'd have put the statue at 100 grand,

it's like I'd just lost 100,000 pound out

of me back garden, and how would you feel?

Like, it just became a bit of a fucking joke.

I hid my head in shame and .

- He's become the thinker, hadn't he?

He's like, really fucking, "How am I gonna work this out,

and how am I gonna, fucking,"

maybe he should stick the traffic cone

on his head and assume position

and just occupy his time like that for some time,

and the thinking cap may bring some enlightenment

to his personal predicament.

- It's a bunch of villains

that have come and taken this statue,

so they've got no idea the cone even belonged to the statue,

they probably thought that someone had just put it

on there by mistake, or for a laugh, or for a giggle.

- The whole point of this is, which,

everybody is fucking missing,

the actual Drinker is not the work of art,

The Drinker is a copy of Rodin's The Thinker.

The work of art in itself is this,

that's the fucking piece, because that's the only thing

that Banksy's paws have touched.

- So he's got this, he's got one part

of the original sculpture, that's fine,

I mean, but it is, it's a road cone.

- So that is the work of art, that's all

that's the fucking Banksy, and that's what's got,

that's what's got his original finish.

- Well, it's got to be madness, innit?

Who is actually gonna want to possess a traffic cone

that might have been touched by him,

it's entirely within the realms of fantasy,

it's just obviously bollocks.

- It could have all washed away,

and I'd just be left with this

as a, as a stand for me fucking fan, and that'd be it.

So I'm at a party at a friend's house one night,

and I've sat down, having a spliff

with this fucking hippie, and I'm telling him

about The Drinker story, and he turned around and,

"Oh, you nicked that fucking Banksy statue,

"I know the guy that made it," ding, what?

- Every piece of art that comes up,

I say, "Yeah, it's Banksy," not realizing

that it might not necessarily be his handiwork,

it might be just his idea.

- Warhol didn't make all his works,

The Factory's chucking them out,

same as Damien Hirst does, he doesn't make 'em,

he gets his fucking minions to do it,

his little fucking elves.

Banksy couldn't make sculptures,

Banksy doesn't make half his fucking stencils.

- The time that he called us was a call for help,

because I think fairly he didn't have a deep knowledge

of maybe working on a large piece like that.

- I don't really know much about sculpture,

so I mistakenly thought that Rodin was just famous

by accident, but as it turns out,

he's actually quite good, so it wasn't as simple as that,

and yeah, it's not as easy as making stencils.

- This idea started fucking festering in me head,

because I'd still got the cone,

still got part of the image of the sculpture,

I started looking into a history of art

that's been broken and destroyed,

and remade and restored.

We're talking, they suddenly found the broken armor

for Michelangelo, you could put the rest to it,

that would then become a restored Michelangelo.

So Damien Hirst's shark was rotting in the gallery,

they skinned it and put it on a plastic model,

and the whole world accepted that as the original,

including Damien Hirst, if I get the statue re-made

by the original fabricators,

it then becomes a restoration piece,

I'm bringing back a lost Banksy.

- By reconstructing statues

that have been stolen is actually a viable thing,

as long as it's to scale,

original maquette would certainly give it more provenance.

- How ya doing, mate?

So I met with these guys, and they seemed pretty genuine.

They showed me all the photographs

of the work that they'd done on the original.

Twin brothers, both called Sam.

I mean, what mother has twins and calls them Sam,

Sam and Samuel, it's like, oh, wow.

- The way we work is to help other artists,

whether you are big or not, to achieve

whatever idea you want to achieve.

- Andy contacted the original sculptor,

who I understand has an original maquette of the work,

which is a small version of the sculpture,

and he's asked them to recreate it,

and then I assume he's gonna want to sell it.

- He said if I wanted another one,

he could make it exact for about 20 grand,

and then when I went back to him next time,

it had suddenly gone up from 20 to 40,

I'm still thinking, "Okay, if it's 30, 40 grand in it,

it's getting a bit much, but I'm on this road now

and I'm committed to it."

Beg, steal, borrowed, pestered, hounded.

It took me about five years, yeah,

when I got the money I felt pretty goddamn good,

like, yeah, now we can fucking go for it.

Once I say I'm gonna do something, then I fucking do it,

no matter what consequences come of it, I'll do it,

and it's a major piece by Banksy,

it was his first major statue,

I am restoring a lost work of art,

and without me, this piece will not,

it'll never be seen again.

It's the phoenix from the flames, it's gonna rise again,

and I'm gonna rub it right in his fucking face.

- Andy's idea of recreating The Drinker,

I felt was a brilliant idea,

because it gave Andy another run.

- Welcome home.

I wouldn't say I were lumbered with a giant statue,

I'd just say I'd got one unusually large garden gnome.

It's in a very secure place.

It's hidden in the extensive arcade and warehouse complex.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, yes.

All right, here we go then, fella.

Yeah, well, I didn't come to play at the sale of it,

I'd love it to sell at Christie's

and make a million fucking quid, of course I would.

- You can re-edit works by an artist in the art world,

but you generally have to use the original molds

or get the artist's consent, and here you have neither.

It's a sort of mongrel, it's not a purebred.

You have mark one cone with mark two Drinker,

and this is going to affect value.

If you were able to get a certificate from them,

from Banksy to say, "You know what,

yeah, I endorse this thing, and it was made

by the original artist, who I commissioned

to make this sculpture, and I will allow this

to be a Banksy," rubber stamp, a million quid.

Without that piece of paper,

and without that endorsement, it's a difficult sell.

It would be very helpful to have Banksy come onboard

and make some sort of comment,

but Banksy isn't gonna comment on it,

but being Andy, he's not gonna give up,

and because he's a pest.

- Pest Control is a handling service acting

on behalf of the artist, Banksy, we answer inquiries

and determine whether he was responsible

for making a certain piece of artwork,

and issue paperwork if this is the case.

- The Banksy machine has become more important

than Banksy himself, the press have picked up this sort

of Robin Hood character that he is,

the myth that he's putting his street work out there

for the people, completely overlooking the fact

that there's a big money-making machine behind this.

Basically, the artist uses the street works

as the to his canvases and prints,

and obviously, for his own benefit as much anything else,

can't authenticate it, it'd be like signing a confession.

- Pest Control is our sole point

of sale for new work by Banksy.

- None of the established auction houses

in the UK or the US will accept any Banksy artwork

without Pest Control provenance.

- Oh, I'm gonna go on as Andy Link,

organization, Art Qaeda.

- It's a horribly lengthy process,

you'd have to prove as much as you physically could,

you have as much documentary evidence of this.

- I fucking hate paperwork.

- You've got a photograph in situ of the piece,

to get as many letters of provenance

or anything of history surrounding the piece itself.

- It's a litany of little details

that build the bigger picture.

- When did I, when did I nick it,

1st of April, right, dimensions,

how big is the fucking statue?

It's clever, you see, what's the purchase price of that,

if you don't fill that in, you can't send it off.

These are the things, the fucking work these, these.

- They exist only in the ether,

there is no tangible address Andy could truck up there

with his sculpture.

- Fucking.

- So good luck to him.

- Please be aware

that because many Banksy pieces are created

in an advanced state of intoxication,

the authentication process can be lengthy and challenging.

- If Banksy won't give you provenance,

I can't sell it.

My provenance is in the front cover of the fucking Guardian,

it's all down in black and white,

how could he say it is, one minute,

and then say it isn't, the next?

- If you ignore him, he'll go away,

but like Link, he won't, will he,

that's the thing, he's just relentless.

- I'm currently unavailable,

please leave your message

and I'll get back to you, thanks, bye.

- Please leave your message after the tone.

To re-record your message, key hash anytime.

- Hi, Laz, come on, don't be full of shit.

You know, you don't blank me fucking calls,

what's wrong, don't you want to talk to me?

I can't understand that, I'm very polite,

very pleasant with you, and you know,

I've rung you on a decent fucking chat,

for a chat, this is bollocks,

and it's fucking rude, as well.

- I don't know if AK-47's deal with Pest Control,

but you can imagine, that's like a match made in heaven,

'cause they'll just piss each other off to kingdom come.

- Now this is as rare as fucking rocking horse shit.

Hello?

- Hello, hello, did you ring?

- Yeah, hello, oh, is that Holly?

- Yeah.

- Hi, this is Andy Link here.

- Is who, sorry?

- Andy Link?

AK-47.

- Oh, okay.

- Um, just wondered if we could get some sort

of chat about this, about The Drinker and everything,

and discussions about it, you know,

it's been, this has been going on for too long,

and it's too, he, it's, it's, it's not nasty,

he's never been nasty, but it's seeming now like it's,

you're spiraling sillily out of control,

and this can all be done in a really nice way for everybody,

so what do you think, what do you think, Holly?

- Pest Control will not authenticate

street works, do not steal them, they are worthless.

- But I've got more chances of knitting fog

than getting provenance for that.

- So you're gonna have to, to market this,

it's gonna have to be a slightly more surprising surprise,

a maverick kind of enterprise.

- You've got to put value on it through telling the story.

- We're , it's Banksy's Dismal,

what is it, Dismaland, we've got The Drinker

on the back lot, there he is, he's sat there

and having a nice journey, I want to show

so people can see that The Drinker is real.

The , they won't give us any fucking joy,

so if they won't answer us, if they mountain won't go

to Mohammad, well, we'll take Mohammad

to wherever he wants to fucking go.

Love me or hate me, you will never, ever ignore me.

I had people all around the world

and all around this country all going out

with traffic cones and just putting them

on statues, as with my logo on it.

We got people in Tehran, Australia,

Columbia, fucking strange places like

and God knows where.

He has risen, resurrection of The Drinker.

Ready or not, there we are, look at the queue.

It was about getting there, making your point,

let 'em know you'd beat, let 'em know you'd beat.

It's a beautiful restoration, you can't tell the difference.

We unveiled that in the street

and say, "It's The Drinker, it's back,"

his fans will love it.

- It's a Banksy!

- It's around in the truck, yeah.

All this, and all this running around,

and now the moment is now.

The moment's gone.

Where are you?

And they just drove off and went

to a fucking cafe and got some dinner.

Well, I'm about, fucking, the whole point

of this fucking thing is to bring the truck,

and drive the truck up and down,

what's it doing parked around the corner

where no one can see it?

Well, what the fucking point of coming down here

if you don't want to fucking drive it round?

We spent six hours in a bastard van, for what?

If everyone won't do it, I'll just do it me fucking self,

it's only me who gets things fucking done,

leave any control with anybody and it just fucks up.

Yeah, I'm not fucking happy, I'm fucking furious.

- He's definitely got a bug up his ass.

I mean, I would rather do other things with my time,

it's like a big, wide world,

where you can do an awful lot of stuff.

The insult that AK-47 feels is not felt

on the other side, so somebody's going,

"What's, what's all this about?"

- Andy's not gonna draw him out,

even Andy, with a good dose of Andy,

is not gonna draw out Banksy.

- I don't want this to come across in a negative way,

you know, but I don't think nobody cares, nobody cares.

- You've got to give this up, mate,

this endless obsession with this work of art,

'cause it means fuck all to nobody.

- That was the only part of the plan left, then,

that was the last bastion of hope.

It's been a very emotional journey,

it's been an 11 year project, but you've got

to know when to get out.

It's time to, you know, move on.

- Well, suddenly he's just over it,

and he sees the light.

- Andy never thinks like any other person,

he's really willing to put himself out there.

- Well, this morning, chaps, I'm going

to show you the next level,

this is the end game, we have to get this fucking right.

An artist thinks outside the box,

I threw the box away, I didn't even know the box were there.

On the day you will get messages via our secret system,

all it will you tell you is time and place,

it will give you coordinates and times.

What is the one thing Banksy would not expect me to do?

We will load it onto the back of a flatbed truck,

which, Matthew, you will be in charge of,

Mr. Ratatata, your job is to get it on and bolt it,

we will take a route to exactly where we stole it,

acquired it from, acquired it, right.

We're going to return it to its original spot.

Right, come on, come on with that fucking ladder,

useless maggot, look at me, come on.

- All right, five seconds up.

- We have to make it look like it were a slick move

and we have to be all a flow.

Come on, come on, come on, let's fast,

move, move, move, move, move, come on,

eleven seconds rounding, nice one, position.

Get it in, get it up, and get the fuck out.

Up, up, and then 20 seconds out, I see.

I've got, I've got the cone, you find the hole.

- That was 40 seconds, we need

to shave another 10 seconds off it, start again.

- This is my only chance, I've got to make this work.

Now, due to the political climate,

it's going to make it hotter than fucking hell.

- Why don't we go dressed as Santa Claus

and his little helpers, tinsel doesn't attract terrorists.

- A one, two, three, lift, lift, come on.

- Fucking hell, must I do it on me own?

- Don't wreck the corner.

- I was the get-there driver.

Easy, tiger.

We practiced putting the thing on and off the lorry once,

and now two.

- Fucking.

- We don't bother tying it down,

'cause that'll do.

And then hey-ho, off we go.

The artist AK was, how can I put this,

stressed to the max.

- I want to try not to get stressed

and shout at you both, but I'm just down to the wire,

well, it is for me, , Matthew.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Please don't snarl back at me, just--

- Fuck off.

- Yeah, you know.

Yeah, no, 'cause you know, you know what I'm like,

Matt, you know I get stressed and stuff, so.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- We know you've thrown a dolly at a pram, mate.

- I just get, the pressure fucking gets to me

when it's somethin' like this.

We're gonna take, we're gonna go straight down it,

we're gonna, Essex road.

And I was stressed, man, I was very stressed.

Are you still with it?

It were all on me, when it came on top,

I were the fucking front man.

- Who got me fucking radios?

- I had to get this right, this was the one thing

that I had to do right.

♪ We're on the march with AK's army ♪

♪ We're off to dump a Banksy on the street ♪

♪ And we'll really shake him up ♪

♪ 'Cause we do not give a fuck

♪ 'Cause AK's going to give the world a treat ♪

♪ We're on the march with Banksy's army ♪

That is lovely, lots of people.

There you go, have a look at a Banksy, it's a Banksy!

Oh, fucking hell, fucking hell, Matt.

We pulled up beside a road, knocked a big fucking sign over,

with Art Qaeda, nothing is a simple journey.

- The back of the gallery faces Shaftesbury Avenue.

- We are now proceeding to base camp,

it's a go, go, go, go, go, we're on his way.

- We're on his way, we're on our way.

- We noticed a truck coming down the road

with a statue on it that looked familiar.

- We're here, we need that car moving now,

move that car!

- We watched these workers dressed as Santa elves,

they all worked very quickly,

with military precision, actually.

- Jump out, jump out, jump out, will you.

- We've got it,

up and over.

- Me 'motions were all over the place,

is this the end, is this the beginning,

what is it, I didn't know.

- Oh, but we've got to get it straight,

okay, let's get him straight.

- I told you to fuck away.

Up.

- Okay.

- Up, up, come on, come on, up.

- Okay, get off the back there.

- As soon as I put the statue there,

it was like, , yes, thank fuck.

Nobody's ever stolen a Banksy,

then given it back.

- You took it, it got nicked, you made it again,

you took it back, yeah, it's kind of cool,

and then the statue's where it was in the first place.

- There's more.

- There's always more.

- This is the Banksy, The Drinker,

now this is AK-47's version.

What I thought I'd do is, I thought,

I'd give it back, but give it back with a twist.

- Up, up.

- Up.

- Up.

- From The Thinker to The Drinker to The Stinker.

- From The Thinker to The Drinker to The Stinker,

I despair.

- What do I think of AK-47's sticking a toilet seat

to The Thinker, I mean, yes, his ethos is taking the piss,

but I think you're really taking the piss.

- I was very emotional, I could have cried.

It's not about Banksy, now it's about my work and me,

and what I've done.

Merry Christmas.

Come on, now, let's get out of here, see you later!

- He wanted to make a statement

that was large enough and had physical impact, and he did.

- The Stinker has value to the thousands

of people who see it every day,

and they have no idea of the story behind it.

- Andy's a great entertainer, and he's an original.

Perhaps one day, you know, Banksy will get over his sense

of humor failure and, and maybe applaud him.

- We noticed that someone had taken an ax,

put it over the handle of the cistern.

We've heard some rumors on the street

that the ax might have been burying of the hatchet.

- Well, that's a lovely thought to think

that the hatchet were buried, the war is over,

I'm calling a truce, fait accompli.