Kamal Ghorui
CHENNAI: The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has returned 657 stolen antiquities, collectively valued at nearly $14 million, to India. The artefacts were recovered through ongoing investigations into international trafficking networks linked to alleged antiquities smuggler Subhash Kapoor and convicted trafficker Nancy Wiener. The items were formally handed over to India during a ceremony held in New York on Tuesday. In an official statement, district attorney Alvin L Bragg Jr said the return highlighted the “massive” scale of trafficking networks that targeted India’s cultural heritage. He added that efforts to recover and repatriate stolen artefacts would continue. Among the most significant artefacts returned is a bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara valued at $2 million. The idol, seated on a double-lotus base above a lion-flanked throne, bears an inscription identifying its craftsman as Dronaditya of Sipur, near present-day Raipur in Chhattisgarh. It was part of a hoard discovered near the Lakshamana Temple in 1939 and later entered the Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum in Raipur by 1952. It was subsequently stolen and smuggled into the United States by 1982 before ending up in a private New York collection by 2014. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office seized the artefact in 2025. Another key object is a red sandstone Buddha statue valued at $7.5 million. Depicting Buddha with his right hand raised in abhaya mudra, or the gesture of protection, the statue suffered damage likely during its looting from northern India. Investigators found that the piece had been smuggled into New York by Subhash Kapoor and later seized from one of his storage facilities by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit. Also returned was a sandstone idol of a dancing Ganesha, looted in 2000 from a temple in Madhya Pradesh by Kapoor associate Ranjeet “Shantoo” Kanwar. Convicted trafficker Vaman Ghiya later sold and shipped the idol to New York gallery owner Doris Wiener. After Doris Wiener’s death, her daughter Nancy Wiener allegedly fabricated false ownership records in 2012 and sold the Ganesha through Christie’s New York auction house. A private collector who purchased the idol later surrendered it earlier this year. “It is indeed a proud moment for us as we see the results of our work, going back over a decade and half, bear fruit,” said India Pride Project Co-Founder S Vijay Kumar. “India must thank HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) for their sustained efforts on tracking these looted artefacts and ensuring their restitution to India. This is the result of 15 years of deciphering and dismantling the Indian art smuggling market which stole our gods and supplied them to the west via dealers like Subhash Kapoor and the Wieners,” he said. For more than a decade, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Homeland Security Investigations have pursued Kapoor and his associates for allegedly looting and trafficking artefacts from South and Southeast Asia. An arrest warrant for Kapoor was issued in 2012, and in 2019 he and seven co-defendants were indicted in New York. Kapoor, convicted in India in 2022 for trafficking offenses, is currently awaiting extradition to the United States. The cases involving Subash Kapoor are in Tamil Nadu and pertain to five cases covering 32 idols. Five of his associates have already been convicted. The Antiquities Trafficking Unit has so far recovered more than 6,200 cultural objects valued at over $485 million and returned over 5,900 items to 36 countries. It has also secured convictions against 18 individuals in cultural property crimes, while extradition proceedings against seven others are pending. “There are more than 1000 more artefacts to be returned and hope India and HSI work on them and also keep deciphering the Kapoor and Wiener dossiers which span almost 50 years of looting,” said Vijay Kumar. India’s consul general Binaya Pradhan thanked the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the US Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies for their sustained cooperation in recovering culturally significant objects.
