A Banksy arrest hoax fooled the Internet yet again this week after the satirical National Report news site published a story claiming that the elusive British graffiti artist had been captured and identified.
The National Report article claimed that Banksy was arrested in London Monday and identified as Paul Horner, a 35-year-old from Liverpool.
"We had a 24-hour Anti-Graffiti Task Force monitoring different groups where Banksy was known to frequent. We received word that around 2 a.m. [that] a group of individuals left a flat speculated to be one of Banky’s art studios," the hoax report said, quoting a fictional London police chief.
"This group was followed by agents and once vandalism had occurred, we then arrested the group, five men total. These individuals all had ID on them except for one, and that is the one we believed to be Banksy."
The report quickly spread on Twitter.
Numerous news sites picked up on the hoax, though, and attempted to spread the word.
"The news of his incarceration is, yet again, a
hoax," The Huffington Post reported.
A similar report about a Banksy arrest circulated last year, stemming from a fictional press release.
As the rumors swirled online, a new artwork attributed to the artist
appeared in Bristol, the New York Daily News reported. It appears to be a parody of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's 1665 masterpiece "Girl with a Pearl Earring." The artwork, "Girl With a Pierced Eardrum," appears to incorporate a burglar alarm in place of the earring.
Banksy is widely considered "the world’s most famous
unidentified person," according to The Washington Post.
"A lot of artists are cantankerous, but Banksy’s more clever than that," the newspaper reported. "His ongoing anonymity cultivates his persona, sure, but so does the way he has teased it out over years — laboring over it as much as he does his artwork."
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