US returns looted antiquities worth US$10 million to India

The United States has returned more than 1,400 looted artifacts worth US$10 million to India as part of an ongoing initiative to repatriate stolen art from countries across South and Southeast Asia, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced Wednesday.

An 11th-century sculpture of a celestial dancer is among 1,440 artifacts repatriated from the U.S. to India.

The trafficked goods recovered include items that, until recently, were on view at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among them is a sandstone sculpture of a celestial dancer that was smuggled from central India to London, before being illegally sold to one of the Met’s patrons and donated to the museum.

The repatriations resulted from “several ongoing investigations” into looting networks, including those operated by convicted art traffickers Nancy Wiener and Subhash Kapoor, an American antiquities dealer who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for running a multimillion-dollar looting network through his New York gallery, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in press release.

Kapoor was sent to face charges in India’s Tamil Nadu state following his arrest in Germany in 2011. The DA’s office obtained an arrest warrant for him in 2012 although he remains in custody in India, pending his extradition to the U.S.

“Today’s repatriation marks another victory in what has been a multiyear international investigation into antiquities trafficked by one of history’s most prolific offenders,” William Walker, the federal Homeland Security Investigation’s New York special agent in charge, said in a press statement.

The items were formally returned at a ceremony at the Indian consulate in New York on Wednesday.

Since its creation over a decade ago, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit — a task force of lawyers, investigators and art experts — has recovered 5,800 antiquities valued at almost US$460 million. The unit has also convicted 16 people of trafficking offenses and filed for the extradition of six others linked to stolen cultural property.

In July, the U.S. and India signed an agreement to protect cultural property by preventing illegal trades and streamlining the process of returning stolen antiquities back to India. (SD-Agencies)

美国曼哈顿地区检察官办公室上周三宣布，美国已向印度归还了 1400 多件被掠夺的文物，价值1000 万美元。这项归还南亚和东南亚各国被盗艺术品的行动还在继续。

部分追回的被盗物品直到最近还在纽约大都会艺术博物馆展出。其中一件天体舞者的砂岩雕塑是从印度中部走私到伦敦的，后来被非法卖给了大都会博物馆的一位赞助人，并捐给了博物馆。

曼哈顿地区检察官办公室在新闻稿中说，这些文物的归还源于对走私盗窃网络 “正在进行的几项调查”，其中包括由被判有罪的艺术品走私犯南希•维纳和苏巴什•卡普尔经营的网络。古董商卡普尔因通过自己纽约画廊经营价值数百万美元的走私网络被判处10年监禁。

卡普尔 2011 年在德国被捕后，被送往印度泰米尔纳德邦接受指控。检察官办公室于 2012 年获得了对他的逮捕令，但他仍被关押在印度，等待被引渡回美国。

联邦国土安全调查局纽约特别主管威廉•沃克在一份新闻声明中说：“今天的归还标志着对历史上最臭名昭著的古董走私犯罪的又一次胜利，这是多年国际合作调查的结果。”

这些文物已于上周三正式归还，当时在印度驻纽约领事馆举行了一个仪式。

由律师、调查员和艺术品专家组成的曼哈顿地区检察官调查文物走私小组自十多年前成立以来，已追回 5800 件文物，价值近 4.6 亿美元。该小组还判定16人犯有走私罪，并申请引渡其他6 名与被盗文物有关的嫌疑犯。

今年7月，美国和印度签署了一项协议，通过防止非法交易和简化返还印度被盗文物的程序来保护文化遗产。

(Translated by Debra)