The United States has returned 192 stolen antiquities — valued at nearly $3.4 million — to Pakistan after an investigation into an Indian-American art dealer, the Manhattan District Attorney’s (MDA) office in New York announced on Friday.
The announcement said that 187 of the artifacts were recovered from the art dealer, Subhash Kapoor, identifying him as one of the world’s most prolific antiquities traffickers.
The art pieces and artifacts included a Gandharan statue depicting a Maitreya — an enlightened form of the Buddha — which was looted from Pakistan and smuggled into New York during the 1990s.
Kapoor had owned an art gallery in New York called ‘Art of the Past’ and a side business that specialized in selling antiquities from Southeast Asia when he was accused of smuggling and selling stolen artefacts, the MDA said.