Lottery Winner Sentenced for 2019 Banksy Artwork Theft

Having $5.7 million in lottery winnings wasn’t enough for Mehdi Meftah. In 2019, he participated in the theft of street fine art that artist Banksy created to immortalize a 2015 terrorist snipe inward Paris, and has now been sentenced for the crime.

The Banksy palisade art paid testimonial to the victims of the terrorist attack, orchestrated past Islamic radicals. They run into tierce locations inwards genus Paris and the city’s Saint-Denis suburb, including the Stade de French Republic association football stadium and the Bataclan house in Paris. 130 people died, including 90 at the theater, which was hosting a concert at the time.

Banksy, a British street artist, painted his “sad-girl” stencil on the Bataclan’s metal door inwards purity of the victims killed. However, quaternion years later, a lily-white van with obscured permission plates pulled upwards and made sour with the door.

Surveillance cameras helped runway pull down the perpetrators, including the 41-year-old Meftah. He appeared this calendar week inwards tribunal to answer for his role, and some might say he got cancelled lightly.

Senseless Crime

Three masked men exited the van on the morning of the theft and used angle grinders powered by a source to cut the hinges. In to a lesser extent than 10 minutes, they realised their charge and took cancelled with the door, reportedly worth €1 gazillion (US$1.05 million).

Investigators mapped the route of the door through France and Italy. Eventually, in June 2020, they found it at a farm In the Italian townsfolk of Sant’Omero.

As it started its journeying following the theft, the door made it to a holding Meftah owned inwards France. He stated to the judicature that he didn’t live almost the theft of the mural, only agreeing to stash it because i of the criminals was a friend.

He added that, inward accepting the stolen art, he didn’t want to be rude. Therefore, he told his friend he would dungeon it until they could encounter a right smart to have rid of it.

However, according to his account, Meftah later mat remorse. So, deuce years later, he packed it up, and instead of returning it, looked for another alternative. He eventually gave it to a cousin and a friend, who took it to a property inward Tortoreto in the Abbruzzese part of Italy.

Initially, prosecutors accused Meftah of having orchestrated the theft. To paint that picture, they relied on the testimonial of i of the ternion men who confessed to the robbery. He asserted that Meftah was responsible for the theft after making a deal to sell it to an unidentified American buyer.

However, that accusal strike down asunder under scrutiny. After finding the main mastermind allegement unsubstantiated by the facts, Meftah received a three-year sentence for manipulation stolen goods. However, instead of being behind bars, he will serve his doom wearing a tracking bracelet.

The three who in reality committed the crime received similar sentences. In addition, a genus Paris royal court found trey to a greater extent guilty for their involvement after the fact. Two had transported the door and are the only ones to get spent clip in jail.

Finding Closure

Bataclan stave stated that the theft caused “deep indignation.” The painted door was a symbolisation of anamnesis that belongs “to everyone,” including Parisians and citizens around the world.

The visitation of Meftah and the others comes as an even more important tryout is reaching its conclusion. Lawyers are closing their arguments in the City of Light attacks trial, with Salah Abdeslam the net terrorist veneer justice. He is the utmost member of the Islamist run into squad.

Some 19 other defendants are standing trial run as well, and testament study their fate next week, when the verdict is delivered. They allegedly had various levels of participation inward the mass onslaught of 2015.