Foreign tagger faces jail after cops caught him at airport — covered in spray paint, DA says
Airport customs officials arrested an infamous international graffiti artist in San Francisco last month as he tried to leave the country — and now he’s admitted it was something of a working vacation, according to Bay Area prosecutors.
Matthew Raoul White, a 33-year-old member of Australian graffiti group Get Hectik, planned to catch a flight from San Francisco International Airport to Sydney on Dec. 28 when federal officers stopped him, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office said. White allegedly had spray paint on his clothes and shoes when he was caught.
By the time of his arrest, White had targeted and tagged at least seven BART trains in San Mateo and Contra Costa counties, including a “Fleet of the Future” model, which is one of the public transit agency’s newest, according to a BART spokesperson. Prosecutors said White’s tags included spray-painted representations of the moniker “Bamp Floss,” as well as the letters “GH,” which stand for “Get Hectik.”
“He’s a prolific tagger,” said Ed Alvarez, deputy police chief for BART, according to NBC Bay Area. “When he was leaving [Australia], contacts were made out here in the United States.”
The West Australian, a daily newspaper in White’s home country, described his trip to the U.S. as a “spraycation.”
BART said its police officers also worked with law enforcement agencies in New York to catch White. He’s accused of targeting trains in a handful of countries, including trains in the Bay Area for a few days in early December.
White pleaded no contest on Wednesday to a felony vandalism charge, for which he faces up to nine months in jail, the San Mateo Daily Journal reports. Prosecutors said earlier that White left behind between $7,000 and $10,000 in damage on a train in Millbrae.
White’s lawyer, V. Roy Lefcourt, said White feels bad and wants to put his life back together, according to the Daily Journal.
White remains in jail on $400,000 bail until a March court appearance where he will be sentenced, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors shared photos of the tagging with McClatchy, including a selfie that appears to show White alongside his handiwork.
Australian authorities “positively identified all the graffiti as having been done by the defendant based on prior investigation,” San Mateo prosecutors said.
In his home country, White has been labeled a “public nuisance” because of his tagging, CBS SF reports. In New York, meanwhile, White was arrested in 2016 and accused of trespassing at a Bronx train depot, according to the TV station.
“It’s all a game to him and the only way we can make an impression on Mr. White is if we punish him hardly,” San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, according to the West Australian.
This story was originally published January 31, 2019 at 7:08 PM with the headline "Foreign tagger faces jail after cops caught him at airport — covered in spray paint, DA says."