The Metropolitan Police announced on Wednesday that James Love, 53, of North Stifford, Essex, and Larry Fraser, 47, of Beckton, east London, had been charged with non-residential burglary.
They were granted bail to appear at Kingston Crown Court on October 9 after making an appearance at Wimbledon Magistrates Court the following day.
One of the most well-known paintings by the street artist, it was taken from a gallery on London’s New Cavendish Street at approximately 11 p.m. on Sunday, September 8.
Police said it had been retrieved and would be put back in the gallery after the Met’s flying squad looked into it.
Unprecedentedly, Banksy claimed to have nine artworks.
Although the street artist often waits months between pieces, the animal-themed artworks kept appearing one after the other.
In just a few hours after it was painted on a satellite dish in Rye Lane, Peckham, southeast London, the fourth piece in the series—a silhouette of a howling wolf—was taken.
Balaclava-wearing individuals were observed using a ladder to reach the flat roof building where the dish was located, then ascending to retrieve it.
The final image, a gorilla painted on a shutter at the London Zoo, was taken down for “safekeeping” by staff members.
