Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the return of four antiquities to Nepal. The antiquities are collectively valued at more than $1 million. The District Attorney’s Office mentioned that three of the artefacts are linked to ongoing probes into trafficking networks in Nepal, including that of the allegedly prolific looter Subhash Kapoor.
Repatriated Artefacts
According to the press release issued by the Consulate General of Nepal in New York, the repatriated artefacts consist of a pair of Bhairava masks (Mukhundo) from the 16th century, made of gilt bronze and a stone image of Shiva and Parvati (Uma-Maheshwara). Additionally, there is a Ten-Armed Durga Statue with no specified age or stated value.
The masks depict Lord Shiva and are collectively valued at $900,000. They were part of ritual worship in the annual Indra Jatra festival before being stolen in the mid-1990s and smuggled to Hong Kong. After being sold at an auction in New York, the masks became part of the collections at the Rubin Museum of Art and Dallas Museum of Art; however, the Manhattan District Attorney recovered them earlier this year.
The Ten-Armed Durga Statue is said to have been illicitly taken out of Nepal by the trafficking network of Zeeshan and Zahid Butt. It was subsequently trafficked into New York and discovered in a storage unit owned by Subhash Kapoor.
Executive director of Rubin Museum, Jorrit Britschgi, endorsed the repatriation of the object, “We’re deeply sorry for the loss its removal has caused community members in Dolakha. We hope the work can return to its former location, yet also understand that the return will not remedy the wrongs that were done.”
Who is Subhash Kapoor?
Subhash Kapoor, a former Manhattan art dealer known as a prolific antiquities smuggler, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by an Indian court for the burglary and illegal export of idols from the Varadharaja Perumal temple, Kanchipuram, to his Manhattan gallery, Art of the Past.
He successfully smuggled about 2600 artefacts from Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Thailand using false provenance papers. His buyers included a global network of private collectors, galleries, and museums, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.
His arrest in Germany in 2011 revealed a multinational ring that smuggled over 2,600 objects valued at more than $107 million from various countries. He faced charges related to a vast smuggling operation across the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
From 2011 to 2023, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office retrieved over 2,500 items reportedly trafficked by Kapoor’s network, with a combined estimated value exceeding $143 million. Kapoor and seven co-defendants were charged in 2019 with conspiracy to traffic stolen antiquities in New York. Following the conviction in New York, the D.A.’s office filed extradition papers for Kapoor. It is anticipated that he will be extradited to the USA upon his release from prison in India.
Further, the Kapoor case has drawn significant public interest in India as it underscores the susceptibility of these idols, regarded as national treasures, to theft in temples that are largely unprotected.