CHENNAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has written to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra seeking details of payments made by them to convicted idol smuggler Subash Kapoor and his US-based art gallery for procurement of Indian artifacts, sources said.
The National Gallery of Australia had procured 13 artifacts that Kapoor had stolen from Indian temples and paid several million dollars to his Art of the Past Gallery in New York. They had returned the antique pieces to India a few years ago.
While Kapoor was convicted for idol theft by a Kumbakonam court in 2022, the ED had registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to trace the money trail.
The communication to the Australian gallery was sent a few weeks ago invoking Section 57 of the PMLA which empowers the ED to issue a letter of request (also known as Letter Rogatory/LR) to another country for seeking evidence required in connection with an investigation after taking permission from a court.
Sources said that the ED has requested for three important pieces of information from the Australian gallery. The agency has asked for a list of Indian artifacts they purchased from Kapoor’s gallery, the details of payments made by the Australian gallery to Nimbus Import Export Inc, Kapoor and/or the Art of the Past Gallery towards the purchase of these artifacts, and details of the bank accounts in which these payments were made.
Sources said that ED’s investigation against Kapoor began in 2012 with the predicate offence being the 2008 FIR registered by the Udayarpalayam police in Ariyalur district against Kapoor and one Sanjivi Asokan.
S Vijay Kumar, co-founder of the India Pride Project who worked with Tamil Nadu’s idol wing CID to identify and bring down Kapoor’s network, welcomed the money laundering investigation.
“We are glad that India is opening investigations into the financial transactions of Subhash Kapoor and his now-defunct gallery, especially with regards to transactions of over $22 million with the National Gallery of Australia,” he said.
Kumar said the ED should take a leaf out of what investigators in US and Cambodia are doing with the deceased art smuggler Douglas Latchford where his daughter is being pursued to pay and return the stolen artifacts that she inherited.
“The Hong Kong route which Kapoor used via HSBC bank accounts of his suppliers should also be probed,” he said.
Kumar urged that similar efforts should be taken in transactions with other museums and collectors, including the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore, museums in Germany and America. The Kapoor illicit trafficking network made millions trafficking idols across India, Kumar said, bemoaning that only seven cases have been filed against him, all from Tamil Nadu. There are open cases from other states, including Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, where cases have not been filed, though the idols have been restituted.