US Returns $10 Million Worth of Looted Indian Artifacts

On Wednesday, the United States announced the return of over 1,400 looted artefacts worth $10 million to India, as part of an ongoing effort to repatriate stolen art from South and Southeast Asia. Among the returned items is a sandstone sculpture of a celestial dancer, which had been smuggled from central India to London, illegally sold to a patron of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, and later donated to the museum.

The recovery is part of investigations into trafficking networks linked to convicted art dealers Subhash Kapoor and Nancy Wiener. Kapoor, an American antiquities dealer, ran a multimillion-dollar looting operation under the guise of his New York gallery. After his arrest in Germany, he was sent to India to face charges. Kapoor was convicted for antiquities trafficking in 2022, and his extradition is still pending.

The artefacts were returned to India in a ceremony at the Indian consulate in New York. This comes after India and the U.S. signed the first "Cultural Property Agreement" in July, aimed at preventing the illegal trafficking of Indian antiquities to the U.S. In September, the U.S. also returned 297 stolen antiquities dating back almost 4,000 years. Since 2016, the U.S. has returned a total of 578 cultural artefacts, the highest number from any country.