CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu police’s Idol Wing CID has brought back a Lord Krishna idol worth Rs 5 crore from the USA, around 20 years after it was supposed to have been stolen by infamous smuggler Subhash Kapoor, according to an official statement on Friday.
The Kaliyamarthana Krishna (Baby Krishna dancing on serpent Kaliya) idol was first spotted by the Idol Wing CID team in a 2008 article titled ‘Gold of the Gods’ written by one Luis Nicolson.
The team came across another article in 2019 on a website which stated that the late Douglas Latchford, a collector of art from Cambodia, India, Southeast Asia and other countries, had been in possession of the idol. Subsequently, inquiries by the team indicated that the idol was in possession of USA’s Homeland Security Investigations.
The Idol Wing team also found that Latchford had procured the idol from Subhash Chandra Kapoor in 2005 at a price of Rs 5.2 crore. One Nancy Weiner from USA, an appraiser, is suspected to have helped Kapoor create a fake appraisal and provenance report, the release said.
The police team claimed that the idol may have been stolen by Kapoor from a temple in Tamil Nadu and later sold to Latchford. A case was registered and ADSP G Balamurugan was nominated as the investigating officer.
The idol was handed over to the Indian high commission in Bangkok, Thailand, by the USA and sent to India on June 25, 2024. It reached India on September 4 and is set to be produced before the special court for idol theft cases in Kumbakonam. The police team is also trying to find out which temple it was stolen from.
DGP Shankar Jiwal appreciated the team on their efforts to retrieve the idol.