They just published something that probably changes everything we thought we knew about Banksy. Reuters conducted a major investigation with documents that had never been made public, and honestly, the details are quite convincing.

It all started when the journalists decided to review New York court records from 2000. They found police documents about someone who was detained for manipulating a billboard for Marc Jacobs on the roof of a building on Hudson Street during Fashion Week. The name listed in the records: Robin Gunningham. According to the papers, he spent several hours in custody, temporarily surrendered his passport, and ultimately paid a fine plus five days of community service. The interesting part is that the address he provided when posting bail is the Carlton Arms Hotel, that legendary place where artists stayed for free in exchange for painting the rooms.

But the real connection comes when Reuters reviewed photographs from Jamaica in 2004. The artist was working with a photographer named Peter Dean Rickards on a project for a record label. In several photos, the artist’s face was visible. Reuters compared those images with later material from the artist and found quite clear physical matches: the same watch, the same bracelet, the same forearm tattoo on the left arm, the same hoop earring. Details that recur in later interviews and books.

What’s most intriguing is what happened afterward. According to Steve Lazarides, the artist’s former representative, Robin Gunningham underwent a legal name change around 2008, when public interest in discovering Banksy’s identity began to threaten his anonymity. Lazarides was direct: “Robin Gunningham does not exist.” From that point, Reuters found immigration records for someone registered as David Jones—basically the British equivalent of John Smith—crossing into Ukraine on October 28, 2022, just days before murals attributed to Banksy appeared in Ukrainian territory. The birth date on the passport matched Gunningham’s.

Before publishing, Reuters contacted the artist and his circle. Banksy did not respond. His lawyer, Mark Stephens, asked that the report not be published and questioned the details. Still, the agency decided to go ahead with the investigation, considering there is a genuine public interest in understanding the story of someone who transformed street art into a global phenomenon.

This isn’t the first time someone claims to have solved the Banksy mystery. But this time, Reuters presented a quite detailed trail with court documents, photographic archives, immigration records, and testimonies from people close to him. Each piece fits together in a way that’s hard to see as coincidence.