New York state prosecutors announced they had returned 30 artifacts to Cambodia and Indonesia, Friday (26/4). These artifacts are the result of illegal activities, including looting by networks of United States (US) traders and smugglers.
“The ancient items are worth a total of US$3 million (or the equivalent of Rp. 48.7 billion at current exchange rates),” said Manhattan Prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
In his statement, Bragg stated that in the two most recent repatriation ceremonies, his party had returned 27 artifacts to Phnom Penh and three artifacts to Jakarta. Among the artifacts is a bronze statue of the Hindu god Shiva known as the “Shiva Triumvirate”, which was seized from Cambodia.
Also included is a stone relief depicting two royal statues from the Majapahit era, 13th to 16th centuries, which were stolen from Indonesia.
Bragg accused Indian-American antiques dealer Subhash Kapoor, and Nancy Wiener from the US of being involved in the illegal antiques trade.
Kapoor is accused of being the mastermind behind an operation to smuggle stolen goods in Southeast Asia to be sold at his gallery in Manhattan. He was the target of a US judicial investigation known as “Hidden Idol” for more than a decade.
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After being arrested in 2011 in Germany, Kapoor was extradited back to India and tried. In November 2022, he was found guilty and received a prison sentence of 13 years.
Kapoor denies US charges of conspiracy to traffic in stolen art. In his statement, Bragg said his party was continuing to investigate smuggling networks targeting Southeast Asian antiquities.
“There’s clearly still a lot of work to be done,” he said.
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Meanwhile, another perpetrator, Wiener, who was sentenced in 2021 for being involved in trafficking stolen art, attempted to sell a bronze statue of Shiva which was ultimately donated to the Denver Art Museum, Colorado, in 2017.
The antiquities were confiscated by a New York court in 2023. During Bragg’s tenure, the antiquities trading unit managed to confiscate 1,200 stolen artifacts from more than 25 countries, with a total value exceeding US$250 million or around IDR 4 trillion.
New York is a major center for human trafficking, and works of art. Some of them have been confiscated from well-known museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and from a number of collectors. (VoA/Z-3)
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