Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg has returned to India 1,440 antiquities which include sacred temple sculptures that had been smuggled to the US.
The artefacts were returned at a ceremony to India’s Consulate General represented by Consul Manish Kulhary by Alexandra de Armas, the Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) Group Supervisor, the prosecutor’s office said.
“We will continue to investigate the many trafficking networks that have targeted Indian cultural heritage,” Bragg said.
The pieces were recovered during investigations into criminal trafficking networks, including those of antiquities traffickers Subash Kapoor, who has been convicted in India, and Nancy Wiener, convicted in the US, according to the prosecutor’s office.
“Today’s repatriation marks another victory in what has been a multi-year, international investigation into antiquities trafficked by one of history’s most prolific offenders,” HSI New York Special Agent in Charge William S. Walker said.
Some of the antiques had been on display in museums until they were seized by the Manhattan prosecutor’s Antiquities Traffic Unit (ATU). They are valued at $10 million.
A warrant has been issued in New York for the arrest of Kapoor, the alleged ring leader of the antiquities smugglers network and his extradition from India is pending, according to the prosecutor’s office.
One of the returned sculptures depicts a Celestial Dancer and it was looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in the early 1980s.
Looters cut it into two and smuggled it to New York via London for sale.
