Prosecutors in New York have returned to their rightful owner scores of artefacts recovered from Indian-American dealer Subhash Kapoor. New York returned 192 antiquities to Islamabad valued at almost $3.4 million. (Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art / Wikimedia Commons) The United States has returned to Pakistan more than 100 antiquities recovered from Indian-American art smuggler Subhash Kapoor, New York prosecutors have announced.
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Thursday's announcement came a week after Kapoor was convicted in India of stealing ancient religious idols and trafficking them to his art gallery in Manhattan.
He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
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Kapoor, also wanted by American authorities, was the subject of a massive US federal investigation known as Operation Hidden Idol
The Manhattan District Attorney's office indicted him in 2020 and has requested his extradition from India
New York returned 192 antiquities to Islamabad valued at almost $3.4 million, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement
Some 187 of the artefacts were seized in relation to the investigation of Kapoor, Bragg added
The returned items include a Gandhara statue depicting Maitreya, the enlightened Buddha, and Mehrgarh figures dating to around 3500-2600 BC that were looted from a Neolithic archaeological site in Pakistan
Kapoor sold the smuggled items at his Madison Avenue-based gallery Art of the Past
Bragg's office says that since 2011 it has recovered more than 2,500 artefacts worth at least $143 million that were trafficked by Kapoor and his associates
In March, Australia returned to India 13 works connected with Kapoor
READ MORE: Disputed statuette, the Guennol Stargazer, lost to Turkey, US court says
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
