You cant expect that they offer a reward that will be worth or close to the worth of the statue, if not, they would have forgotten about the stolen one and made another, to me, it wasn't stolen sef, rather destroyed by any anti bitcoin or random person(s), if they can find it close the Lugano bank, then this shows that the intention was to destroy the statue into the river so no one can trace on it again, people can be so wicked.
That's what I thought too when I saw that news I was like why didn't they make another one instead of offering a reward for whoever discovers the missing part, except maybe the material used in making the item is very expensive and worth the reward, however if you think deep about it you could conclude that it was done intentionally by a Bitcoin hater as you said.
Inasmuch as Bitcoin is very beneficial to people like us there are some folks who seriously have hatred for it over their own mistake, sometimes they traded with a shitcoin and lost heavily then developed the wrong mindset that all coins are the same. Well it would take a team of good divers to go search for it inside the river and recover the missing parts, the reward is worth it.