Mexican Consulate video View Full Caption NYPD

MIDTOWN — Police released footage of two men suspected of splashing red paint on the Mexican consulate last month.

The suspects, who are believed to be in their 20s, defaced the consulate, at 27 E. 39th St., roughly 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 29, throwing a container of red paint and spraying it across the facade above the entrance, police said.

NYPD officers regularly guard the consulate, but the suspects struck during a shift change when the building was briefly unguarded, according to a consulate spokesman.

The vandalism was likely related to ongoing protests over the Mexican government’s handling of the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, spokesman Carlos Gerardo Izzo Rivera said last month.

The students were detained by police while en route to a protest and are believed to have been handed over to members of a drug gang who killed and incinerated the students, according to reports.