The US has returned 657 antiquities, collectively valued at nearly USD 14 million, to India, saying more work remains to repatriate stolen artifacts to the country.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the return on Tuesday. The items were recovered through investigations into trafficking networks, including probes linked to disgraced art dealer Subhash Kapoor and convicted trafficker Nancy Wiener. The handover took place at an event attended by Consul Rajlakshmi Kadam of the Consulate General of India in New York.
“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,” Bragg said. “There is unfortunately more work to be done to return stolen artifacts back to India, and I thank our team for their persistent efforts.”
Consul General of India in New York Binaya Pradhan thanked the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the US Department of Homeland Security, and law enforcement partners, saying their “continued vigilance” made the recovery and return of these culturally significant artifacts possible.
Among the returned items is a two-million-dollar bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara seated on an inscribed double-lotus base over a lion-flanked throne. The inscription names the craftsman as Dronaditya of Sipur, near modern-day Raipur in Chhattisgarh. The Avalokiteshvara was part of a large hoard of bronzes found near the Lakshmana Temple in 1939 and entered the Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum, Raipur, by 1952. It was stolen from the museum, smuggled into the US by 1982, and ultimately placed in a private New York collection by 2014; the Manhattan DA’s office seized it in 2025.
A sandstone figure of a dancing Ganesha was looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in 2000 by one of Kapoor’s indicted co-conspirators, Ranjeet Kanwar. Convicted trafficker Vaman Ghiya sold and shipped the statue to New York gallery owner Doris Wiener. After Doris Wiener’s death, her daughter Nancy Wiener — later convicted of antiquities trafficking — created false provenance for the Ganesha and consigned it to Christie’s New York, where it sold at auction in 2012. The private buyer surrendered the statue to the Manhattan DA’s office earlier this year.
Another recovered piece is a red sandstone Buddha standing with his right hand raised in abhaya mudra, a gesture of protection. The statue’s feet are broken below the knees and only fragments of its halo remain, damage consistent with looting in Northern India. That USD 7.5 million statue was smuggled into New York by Kapoor and seized from one of his storage units by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit.
For more than a decade, the DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), alongside Homeland Security Investigations and other partners, has pursued Kapoor and co-conspirators for alleged illegal looting, exportation, and sale of artifacts from South and Southeast Asia. The DA’s office obtained an arrest warrant for Kapoor in 2012; in November 2019 he and seven co-defendants were indicted for conspiracy to traffic stolen antiquities. Kapoor was convicted in India for trafficking activities in 2022; his extradition to the US is pending. Five of his co-defendants have been convicted by the Manhattan DA’s office.
To date, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit has recovered more than 6,200 cultural treasures — including rare books, works of art, and antiquities — valued at over USD 485 million, and has returned more than 5,900 items to 36 countries. The ATU has secured convictions of 18 individuals for cultural property–related crimes, with another seven alleged traffickers awaiting extradition.
