NEW YORK — In a long-running probe into a stolen art enterprise, US officials returned roughly 250 antiques to India on Thursday.
The event is the result of a lengthy investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thousands of artifacts were reportedly smuggled into the United States by trader Subhash Kapoor, who has rejected the charges.
Authorities claim Kapoor, who is now imprisoned in India and faces charges there pending a request for extradition to the United States, used his Arts of the Past Museum in New York to export plundered antiquities from India and other Southeast Asian nations. According to Vance, the inquiry resulted in the seizure of 2,500 antiquities worth $143 million and the conviction of six Kapoor co-conspirators.
As part of the inquiry, the district attorney’s office returned more than two dozen antiquities worth $3.8 million to Cambodia in June. In April, another 33 artifacts were returned to Afghanistan.
According to US authorities, Kapoor had the objects washed and restored to remove any damage caused by unlawful excavation before illegally exporting them to the United States.