The United States has recently repatriated more than 1,400 looted artifacts valued at $10 million to India as part of a broader effort to return stolen art from countries in South and Southeast Asia. This initiative, led by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, aims to combat the illegal trafficking of cultural heritage.
Among the recovered items were pieces that were previously displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Notably, a sandstone sculpture of a celestial dancer, which was smuggled from central India to London and later sold illegally to a patron of the Met, was among the artifacts returned.
These repatriations were the result of ongoing investigations into looting networks, including those associated with convicted art traffickers Nancy Wiener and Subhash Kapoor. Kapoor, an American antiquities dealer, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for orchestrating a multimillion-dollar looting network through his New York gallery. Despite being in custody in India, efforts are being made to extradite him to the US.
William Walker, the special agent in charge of the federal Homeland Security Investigation’s New York office, hailed the repatriation as a significant milestone in the fight against antiquities trafficking. The items were officially returned during a ceremony at the Indian consulate in New York.
Over the past decade, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, comprising legal experts, investigators, and art specialists, has recovered a total of 5,800 antiquities valued at nearly $460 million. The unit has successfully prosecuted 16 individuals for trafficking offenses and is pursuing the extradition of six others involved in the illicit trade of cultural property.
In a move to further safeguard cultural heritage, the US and India signed an agreement in July to enhance the protection of cultural property, prevent illegal trades, and facilitate the return of stolen antiquities to India.
