NEW DELHI: The United States has handed over 657 antiquities that were stolen and smuggled out of the country over the decades in the previous century to India.
A bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara seated on an inscribed double-lotus base over a lion-flanked throne, a red sandstone figure of a Buddha standing with his right hand raised in abhaya mudra, and a sandstone figure of a dancing Ganesha, which was looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh, are among the antiquities returned.
The returned articles are collectively valued at about 14 million US dollars.
The collection includes antiquities that were smuggled by the notorious art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who is serving a jail term in Tamil Nadu. The pieces were returned at a ceremony attended by Consul Rajlakshmi Kadam from the Consulate General of India in New York.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg announced the return of the antiquities on Tuesday. “The pieces were recovered pursuant to several ongoing investigations into criminal trafficking networks, including those of alleged antiquities trafficker Subhash Kapoor and convicted trafficker Nancy Wiener,” read a statement issued by Bragg.
The inscription on the bronze Avalokiteshvara identifies the craftsman as Dronaditya of Sipur, located near modern-day Raipur in Chhattisgarh. It was part of a large hoard of bronzes discovered near the Lakshmana Temple in 1939 and entered the collection of the Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum, Raipur, by 1952. The idol was stolen from the museum and smuggled into the US by 1982, ultimately ending up in a private collection in New York by 2014. The two-million-dollar bronze was located and seized from that collection in 2025.
The sandstone Buddha’s feet are broken off below the knees, and only fragments of the halo behind his head are visible, damage that likely occurred when the statue was looted from India.
Valued at 7.5 million dollars, it was smuggled by Subhash Kapoor and seized by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit from one of his New York storage units.
According to the statement, the dancing Ganesha was stolen in 2000 by one of Kapoor’s indicted co-conspirators, Ranjeet “Shantoo” Kanwar, from a temple in Madhya Pradesh. Convicted trafficker Vaman Ghiya then sold and shipped the Ganesha to New York-based gallery owner Doris Wiener.
In 2012, after Doris Wiener’s death, her daughter Nancy Wiener, later convicted by the attorney’s office for antiquities trafficking, knowingly created false provenance for the Ganesha, consigning and selling it at Christie’s New York. The Ganesha was purchased at the 2012 auction by a private collector, who surrendered it to the district attorney earlier this year.
“The scale of the trafficking networks that targeted cultural heritage in India is massive, as demonstrated by the return of more than 600 pieces today,” said Bragg. “There is unfortunately more work to be done to return stolen artifacts to India, and I thank our team for their persistent efforts.”
On the return of the articles, Consul General Binaya Pradhan expressed his appreciation for the sustained cooperation extended by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the US Department of Homeland Security, and law enforcement agencies whose continued vigilance has made the recovery and return of these culturally significant artifacts possible.
