Following an investigation into international trafficking networks, the United States recently returned 657 stolen artefacts to India, valued at nearly $14 million. District Attorney Alvin L Bragg Jr announced the handover of the artefacts at a ceremony attended by Consul Rajlakshmi Kadam from the Indian Consulate in New York.
The artefacts were recovered during an investigation into trafficking networks linked to alleged trafficker Subhash Kapoor and convicted dealer Nancy Wiener. According to authorities, the trafficking network stole artefacts from temples, museums and archaeological sites in India using local intermediaries. They resorted to theft, fake documentation and resale through galleries and auction houses in the US and other countries to get hold of the artefacts.
“The scale of the trafficking networks that targeted cultural heritage in India is massive, as demonstrated by the return of more than 600 pieces today. There is unfortunately more work to be done to return stolen artefacts back to India, and I thank our team for their persistent efforts.” Bragg said.
The artefacts include a bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara, valued at about $2 million, a red sandstone Buddha statue, and a sandstone statue of a dancing Ganesha. The Avalokiteshvara statue, valued at about $2 million, was found near the Lakshmana Temple in 1939 and later kept at the Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum in Raipur. It was stolen and smuggled out of India by 1982. In 2025, it was seen in a private collection in New York.
The Buddha statue, valued at $7.5 million, was smuggled into New York through Kapoor’s network and later found in a storage unit. The statue, which shows Buddha in “abhaya mudra”, was damaged during theft. The Ganesha statue was stolen from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in 2000 by co-conspirator Ranjeet Kanwar. It was later sold by convicted trafficker Vaman Ghiya. Nancy Weiner forged provenance documents for the statue, which was auctioned at Christie’s New York in 2012. Earlier this year, a private collector surrendered the statue.
The Antiquities Trafficking Unit and Homeland Security Investigations have been conducting a probe against Kapoor and his associates for more than 10 years. In 2012, the authorities issued a warrant against Kapoor and in 2019, they indicted him and seven co-accused. In 2022, Kapoor was convicted in India and is awaiting extradition to the US. His five co-defendants, including two of his indicted co-defendants as well as three other traffickers who had been charged separately, have also been convicted by the Manhattan DA’s office.
According to the Manhattan DA’s office, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit has so far recovered more than 6,200 cultural treasures, including rare books, works of art, and antiquities, valued at more than $485 million. Over 5,900 of them have been returned to 36 countries. Additionally, the Unit has convicted 18 individuals of cultural property-related crimes, with another 7 alleged traffickers pending extradition.
In January this year, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., returned three stolen Indian bronze statues to the Indian government. The statues include a 12th-century ‘Somaskanda,’ which shows Shiva with his wife, the 16th-century ‘Saint Sundarar With Paravai,’ and a dancing Shiva known as ‘Shiva Nataraja,’ made around A.D. 990.
