British street art Banksy has been creating work every day in October throughout New York city. Many of the pieces have been defaced, painted over and even faked and sold and on Tuesday a New York Banksy artwork was stolen.

The work, Everything but the kitchen Sphynx, was described on the artist's website as "A 1/36 scale replica of the great Sphinx of Giza made from smashed cinderblocks" and sat in an industrial area of the Willetts Point area of Queens.

However, by Tuesday afternoon the sculpture had been removed by Bernardo "Choco" Veles, an owner of a nearby auto-glass business, according to the New York Post. Veles and a group of around 20 men moved the statue brick-by-brick into the back of a truck, after explaining that "a big gallery truck pulled up and offered me money. He gave me a card."

According to New York news website Gothamist, the removal truck arrived after Veles had been "selling off bricks and stone for around $100 a pop". The sculpture was pictured being placed in a Mundanzas Moving truck. When contacted, the truck company told Gothamist that they did not speak English. Although police later arrived on the scene, the whereabouts of the scultpure are not known.