How Police Records, Old Photos and Secret Name Changed Reportedly Unmasked Banksy as 2 People Working Together
How Police Records, Old Photos and Secret Name Changed Reportedly Unmasked Banksy as 2 People Working Together
David ChiuWed, March 18, 2026 at 3:32 PM UTC
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An art piece that features a bearded man having a bathcreated by British artist Banksy on the wall of a five-storey apartment building destroyed by a Russian aerial bomb in March 2022Credit: Evgen Kotenko / Ukrinform/Future Publishing/Getty -
News outlet Reuters reported on March 13 that it had uncovered the identity of popular and elusive street artist Banksy
Based on an investigation that included a police confession following an arrest in 2000, the outlet claimed Banksy is Robin Gunningham and collaborator Robert Del Naja
A lawyer for Banksy told Reuters that his client “does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct"
Has the true identity of Banksy been finally unmasked?
A recent Reuters investigation claimed to have solved that mystery concerning the popular and elusive British street artist, who is most famous for stenciling paintings on walls and other public areas without ever being caught in the act.
According to Reuters, Banksy is believed to be the pseudonym for Robin Gunningham of Bristol, England, who later changed his name to David Jones. The report also alleged that Robert Del Naja, the singer known as 3D for the British trip-hop act Massive Attack (who himself has been rumored to be Banksy), is Gunningham's secret painting collaborator.
In their Friday, March 13, article, Reuters reporters Simon Gardner, James Pearson and Blake Morrison pointed to several details that led them to believe that Banksy is Gunningham.
They recounted an incident in 2022 when, according to witnesses, three men — two of them masked and the other unmasked, with prosthetic legs — approached a bombed-out apartment building in the village of Horenka in Ukraine.
The two masked men began stenciling a bearded man in a bathtub on a wall. That work and others in Ukraine were later revealed to be Banksy originals.
Reuters reporters subsequently visited the village, where they showed locals photos of three people suspected to be Banksy and asked if they recognized them: Gunningham; Del Naja — who is also a graffiti artist — and Thierry Guetta, a street artist.
Reuters reported that Tetiana Reznychenko, one of the villagers, made coffee for the two masked men who created the bathtub mural, and then saw them without their masks. When shown one of the photos of the possible suspects, they said her reaction changed — the person in the image turned out to be Del Naja.
The outlet later learned through sources that Del Naja and the unmasked man with the prosthetic legs, identified as Giles Duley, entered Ukraine in October 2022, before the Banksy murals appeared. There was no evidence, however, that Gunningham and Guetta had traveled to Ukraine around that same time.
Banksy's 'Hammer Boy' in Manhattan, New York City, on July 7, 2024Credit: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty
Another piece of evidence that Reuters uncovered stemmed from an anecdote in a book written by Banksy’s former manager, Steve Lazarides. Lazarides wrote about the time Banksy was arrested for doctoring a Marc Jacobs billboard on a New York City building roof.
Although Lazarides didn’t specify the address or the exact date of the arrest, Reuters was able to locate that information and obtain police documents and a court file pertaining to the Sept. 18, 2000 arrest.
Among the documents unearthed by the reporters included the suspect’s handwritten confession signed by a Robin Gunningham, Reuters reported. The felony charge was dropped to a misdemeanor, and the suspect paid a fine and served five days of community service.
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Reuters also reported that images posted by the late photographer Peter Dean Rickards purportedly showed an unmasked Banksy at work in Jamaica — with one of the images later published in the Evening Standard in 2004. Based on cross-referencing, Reuters concluded the man in Rickards’ photos is Banksy.
Banksy was first identified as Gunningham by the British tabloid The Mail on Sunday in 2008.
When contacted by Reuters late last year, Lazarides denied that Gunningham is Banksy. “There is no Robin Gunningham,” Lazarides told the outlet, adding that attempt to find him would be "a straight dead end."
Reuters also reported during its investigative work that Gunningham changed his name to David Jones, a moniker common in Britain. Citing an immigration source, the outlet claimed that a David Jones entered Ukraine around the same time as Del Naja in October 2022. The source also said Jones left Ukraine on the same day as Del Naja in November 2022 and that the birthdate on Jones’ passport matches Gunningham’s birthday.
New Banksy Mural at The Princess of Wales Pub in Primrose Hill on June 14, 2010 in LondonCredit: Neil Mockford/Getty
PEOPLE's efforts to reach Mark Stephens, Banksy’s attorney, for comment were unsuccessful. A publicist for Massive Attack did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.
In a statement to Reuters, Stephens wrote that his client “does not accept that many of the details contained within your enquiry are correct.”
The attorney, however, did not further elaborate his explanation and did not confirm or deny Banksy’s identity. According to Reuters, Stephens urged the outlet not to publish the report over concerns it would violate his client's privacy and endanger him.
“Reuters took into account Banksy’s privacy claims – and the fact that many of his fans wish for him to remain anonymous,” the reporters wrote. “Yet we concluded that the public has a deep interest in understanding the identity and career of a figure with his profound and enduring influence on culture, the art industry and international political discourse.”
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A visitor views the Banksy works 'Girl With Balloon' during the exhibition "The Mystery of Banksy - A Genius Mind" on May 9, 2024, in Cologne, Germany.Credit: Andreas Rentz/Getty
Among Banksy’s famous works is 2006’s Girl With Balloon, which sold for $1.4 million at auction in 2018. Moments after that transaction, the stencil spray painting immediately started self-destructing through a secret shredder hidden in the frame.
The shredded work, retitled as Love Is in the Bin, later sold at auction in 2021 for more than $25 million, according to MyArtBroker.com.
PEOPLE also contacted Pest Control, the legal guardian for Banksy, on Tuesday, March 17, but did not receive an immediate response.
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