The United States took this initiative of repatriating stolen art from countries across Southeast Asia and South. As a part of it, the US on Wednesday announced returning over 1400 looted artefacts, all of which is worthed at $10 million to India.
Until recently, these looted goods included artefacts that were displayed at the New york Metropolitan Museum of Art, says a report by CNN.
Amongst the items returned to India is a sandstone sculpture of a celestial dancer that was an artefact smuggled from central India to London and then was illegally sold to one of the Met’s patrons and donated to the Museum
In a press release, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said that the goods were recovered as a part of “online investigations into criminal trafficking networks.” This includes all the items operated by convicted art traffickers Subhash Kapoor and Nancy Wiener. Kapoor is an Antiquities dealer in America who was imprisoned for 10 years and held responsible for running a multimillion-dollar looting network at the front of his New York gallery.
Kapoor was arrested in Germany and later sent to India to face charges for the matter.
William S Walker, Homeland Security Investigations New York Special Agent in Charge, in a press statement, says, “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.” according to the Manhattan DA’s office.
In July, India and the United States signed their first-ever “Cultural Property Agreement” to prevent and control the illicit trafficking of antiquities from India to the US. Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Govind Mohan, and US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, finalized the agreement, as announced in a press release from the Indian Ministry of Culture.
