Manhattan D.A. Bragg returns more than 1,400 Antiquities to India

The pieces were recovered pursuant to several ongoing investigations into criminal trafficking networks, including those of alleged antiquities trafficker Subash Kappoor and convicted trafficker Nancy Wiener. The pieces were returned at a ceremony with Manish Kulhary from the Consulate General of India in New York and Alexandra deArmas, Group Supervisor from the Homeland Security Investigation, New York Cultural Property, Art, and Antiquities Group.

“We will continue to investigate the many trafficking networks that have targeted Indian cultural heritage” said District Attorney Bragg. “I thank our team of prosecutors and analysts, along with our partners at HSI, for their continued commitment to returning stolen and looted artifacts.”

“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 and our colleagues at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have worked tirelessly with our partners in India and beyond to disrupt and dismantle the smuggling networks and in turn recover these invaluable pieces,” said HSI New York Special Agent in Charge William S. Walker. “While our work continues, we remain resolute in our commitment to safeguard against the plundering of antiquities and guarantee that those who seek to gain from these heinous acts are held fully accountable.”

For more than a decade, the District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, along with law enforcement partners at Homeland Security Investigations, have investigated Kapoor and his co-conspirators for the alleged illegal looting, exportation, and sale of artifacts from numerous countries in South and Southeast Asia. The D.A.’s Office obtained an arrest warrant for Kapoor in 2012. 

Kapoor’s extradition from India, where he was convicted for his trafficking activities in 2022, is pending.

Main Image: A sandstone sculpture depicting a Celestial Dancer, which was looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh, India, in the early 1980’s.  While prying the delicately carved statue from the temple pillar it once adorned, looters cleaved the Celestial Dancer into two halves to facilitate its smuggling and illicit sale. By February 1992, the two halves were illegally imported from London into New York at the direction of Subash Kapoor, professionally reassembled, and donated to the Met by a client of Kapoor.  The Celestial Dancer remained on display at the Met, until it was seized by the ATU in 2023.