Daijiworld Media Network – New York
New York, Apr 30: In a major boost to efforts against cultural theft, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has returned 657 antiquities valued at nearly $14 million to India following extensive investigations into international trafficking networks.
District Attorney Alvin L Bragg Jr announced the restitution during a ceremony attended by Consul Rajlakshmi Kadam from the Consulate General of India in New York. The recovered artefacts were traced through ongoing probes into networks linked to alleged trafficker Subhash Kapoor and convicted antiquities dealer Nancy Wiener.
Highlighting the magnitude of the issue, Bragg said the scale of trafficking targeting India’s cultural heritage remains vast, noting that over 600 artefacts were recovered in this single operation alone. He added that continued global cooperation is essential to repatriate stolen heritage objects.
Consul General Binaya Pradhan acknowledged the role of US agencies, including the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security, in facilitating the return of culturally significant artefacts.
Among the notable items is a bronze statue of Avalokiteshvara valued at $2 million, originally housed at the Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum in Raipur. The sculpture was stolen and smuggled into the US by 1982 and was recovered from a private collection in New York in 2025.
Another significant recovery is a red sandstone Buddha statue worth $7.5 million, which had been trafficked through Kapoor’s network and later seized from a storage facility in New York.
Authorities also returned a sandstone statue of a dancing Ganesha, looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in 2000. The artefact was sold using forged provenance documents and auctioned at Christie’s in New York in 2012 before being surrendered by a private collector earlier this year.
For more than a decade, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), along with Homeland Security Investigations, has pursued Kapoor and his associates for their alleged role in smuggling artefacts across South and Southeast Asia. Kapoor was issued an arrest warrant in 2012 and indicted along with seven others in 2019. Though convicted in India in 2022, he is yet to be extradited to the United States.
The ATU has so far recovered over 6,200 cultural objects valued at more than $485 million and returned nearly 5,900 items to 36 countries. It has also secured 18 convictions in cultural property crimes, with seven more suspects awaiting extradition.
Officials said the latest recovery marks another significant step in international efforts to curb antiquities trafficking and restore stolen heritage to its rightful origins.