Banksy £95k Print Stolen in Belfast – Thief Jailed for Six Months
A man who stuffed a £95,000 Banksy artwork into a Primark bag and walked out of a Belfast gallery has been jailed for six months. The print, “Laugh Now,” was swiftly recovered by police.
A Banksy worth £95,000 was stuffed into a Primark bag and hauled down a Belfast street. Now the thief is in prison.
Adil Hajjaj, 50, walked into Charles Gilmore Fine Art one April afternoon, loomed over the lone deputy manager, and moments later his accomplice distracted her with chatter. Hajjaj slipped out carrying the gallery’s prize—Banksy’s “Laugh Now,” a limited-edition print of a monkey wearing a sandwich board warning of power flips to come.
He didn’t get far. Police caught him soon after, trudging along Ormeau Road with the artwork crammed into a shopping bag.
In court, his lawyer argued he was desperate, broke, drinking heavily, and unaware of the print’s staggering value. But Judge Patricia Smyth didn’t buy the idea of an innocent stumble into crime. “This was a planned theft, not opportunistic,” she said, handing him six months behind bars and another six on licence.
Hajjaj, a Moroccan asylum seeker living on £40 a week, already had a string of thefts to his name. The judge called it a pattern, a disregard for victims and the law.
The Banksy, a sly reminder of who ends up in charge, is back where it belongs. The man who thought it was a quick score now has half a year to stare at bare walls.
ART Walkway News
