US returns trafficked Pakistan artifacts
THE US has returned to Pakistan more than 100 antiquities recovered from Indian-American art smuggler Subhash Kapoor, New York prosecutors announced Thursday.
Kapoor was convicted in India last week of stealing ancient religious idols and trafficking them to his art gallery in Manhattan. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Kapoor, also wanted by American authorities, was the subject of a massive US federal investigation known as Operation Hidden Idol.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office indicted him in 2020 and have requested his extradition from India.
New York returned 192 antiquities to Islamabad valued at almost $3.4 million, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
Some 187 of the artifacts were seized in relation to the investigation of Kapoor, Bragg added.
The returned items include a Gandhara statue depicting Maitreya, the enlightened Buddha, and Mehrgarh figures dating to around 3500-2600 BC that were looted from a Neolithic archaeological site in Pakistan.
Kapoor sold the smuggled items at his Madison Avenue-based gallery Art of the Past.
Bragg's office says that since 2011 it has recovered more than 2,500 artifacts worth at least $143 million that were trafficked by Kapoor and his associates.
According to the US, five India-based co-defendants and Kapoor had been held in prison in the South Asian nation since 2012 for charges relating to his role selling stolen Indian antiquities.
Last week, the six men were convicted and sentenced by a special court in India.
‘Kapoor was convicted for receiving stolen property, habitually dealing in stolen property, and conspiracy, and fined and sentenced to thirteen years in prison,' the statement said. It added that the Manhattan district attorney's office is seeking Kapoor's extradition to pursue his prosecution in the US.
The antiquities were returned during a repatriation ceremony at the Pakistani consulate in New York where US Homeland Security Investigations Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Thomas Acocella and Pakistani Consul General Ayesha Ali were present.
The antiquities were looted from a Neolithic archaeological site in Pakistan before being trafficked to New York.