NEW YORK RETURNS $3 MILLION WORTH OF 30 ANTIQUITIES TO CAMBODIA AND INDONESIA

NEW DELHI: New York returned 30 looted, sold, or illegally transferred antiquities to Cambodia and Indonesia, totaling $3 million in value.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in a statement, stated that he had returned 27 pieces to Phnom Penh and three to Jakarta, including a bronze of the lord Shiva ("Shiva Triad") diety looted from Cambodia and a stone bas-relief of two royal figures from the Majapahit empire (13th-16th century) stolen from Indonesia, in recent repatriation ceremonies.

Art dealers Subhash Kapoor, an Indian American and Nancy Wiener were accused of trafficking the antiquities.

Kapoor was arrested in 2011 and was found guilty of stealing 19 ancient idols and then illegally transferring them to his art gallery in Manhattan. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in India in 2022. For years Kapoor was selling Hindu, Buddhist and South Asian antiquities through his gallery on Madison Avenue, Art of the Past, some of which went to museum collections.

Meanwhile, Wiener was sentenced in 2021 while attempting to sell the bronze Shiva but ultimately donated it to the Denver Museum of Art in 2007, where it was seized by New York courts in 2023, according to the New York Times.

Bragg emphasized ongoing efforts to combat antiquities trafficking, stating, "We are continuing to investigate the wide-ranging trafficking networks that... target Southeast Asian antiquities." He further said, "There is clearly still much more work to do."

Under his leadership, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit has recovered nearly 1,200 items valued at over $250 million.

(With inputs from agency)