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Showing posts with label Subhash Kapoor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Subhash Kapoor. Show all posts

December 31, 2022

ARCA looks back on art and crime in the year 2022

Debris covering stairs inside the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre following a March 16, 2022, bombing in Mariupol, Ukraine.
Image Credit AP - Alexei Alexandrov

As the year comes to a close, it's time to highlight (some) of the losses, and a few of the successes from the year 2022 before we look ahead to what 2023 will bring.  

In 2022 we witnessed Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, taking thousands of lives and creating a tragic humanitarian crisis.  One symbol of both heritage and human loss was the airstrike upon the historic Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, a cultural landmark where hundreds of people had been sheltering as a result of the city's siege.  The theatre strike serves as painful testimony to the cost of war and the painfully permanent scale of destruction to the Ukrainian port city and ints inhabitants, as Russia's primary target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas.  

Evidence collected by the AP estimates that as many as 600 civilians may have died as a result of the theatre's March 16th double airstrike, which placed this cultural institution directly in the crosshairs of the conflict.  This despite the centre's obvious civilian character and the fact that the displaced individuals who sought refuge there had plainly marked the pavement, in front of each entrance to the structure, with the word дети (children), written in Cyrillic and could be seen cooking daily meals outside.  

Five days later and just a few blocks away, Russia's bombardment also heavily damaged the Kuindzhi Art Museum, dedicated to the life and work of local realist painter Arkhip Kuindzhi.  Kuindzhi’s works were not in the museum at that time,  however, the fate of other artworks in the museum remains difficult to ascertain. 

It total UNESCO has documented 64 damaged or destroyed sites of historical and/or artistic interest in the Donetsk Region alone

Elsewhere in the Ukraine, some 400 kilometres away, artworks from the Kherson Fine Arts Museum's collection were stolen between October 30 and November 3 just prior to Russia's forced withdrawal from the city. Photos shared later on Facebook showed dozens of paintings from the plundered museum stacked along a wall inside the  Tsentral'nyy Muzey Tavridy, the Crimean history museum in Simferopol, Crimea. 

As of December 23rd, throughout Ukraine, again according to UNESCO, the agency has verified damage at 102 religious sites, 18 museums, 81 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, and 11 libraries.

Outside Ukraine, two themes for 2022 are museums, and those in charge of them, behaving badly, and crime doesn't pay. 

In the US, investigators from the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, issued three separate search warrants on the Metropolitan Museum of Art which resulted in the seizure and return of 27 antiquities to their countries of origin—21 to Italy and 6 to Egypt.  

On the West Coast, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles saw its hand forced by the same East Coast prosecutor, following an ongoing criminal investigation by DANY.  That investigation resulted in the California museum relinquishing, post-seizure, its looted group of life-size terracotta figures known as Orpheus and the Sirens back to Italy. 

Things were no quieter for museums over in Europe and the Middle East, where over the summer, France saw its former director of the Musée du Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez and archaeologist-curator Jean-Francois Charnier formally charged for “complicity“ in having facilitated $50 million in acquisitions of illicit material by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, connected to investigations of suspect antiquities dealers Roben Dib (currently in French custody) and Germany-based dealer Serop Simonian.

As legal investigations usually take several years to unfold in France, Martinez and Charnier have been released under judicial supervision while a ruling of the examining chamber is expected in the new year, which some say, may see these preliminary charges dropped.

Dealers who behaved badly include Inigo Philbrick who received an 84 month prison sentence in May in connection with a multi-year scheme to defraud various collectors and business entities in order to finance his art business.

Eighty year old Raffaele Monticelli, a man considered by various Italian prosecutors to be one of the biggest middle-tier traffickers of archaeological finds in Europe, died in October.  Still active in smuggling illicit material out of Italy, he had only recently returned home to Taranto following the conclusion of a short prison sentence involving a looted helmet in circulation in the Netherlands. 

Also in the Netherlands, the Dutch appeals court confirmed the 8 year prison sentence in July for 59 year old Nils Menara, a professional burglar known on the street as 'Gauwtje' for his role in the thefts of two paintings, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884), by Vincent van Gogh, and Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer by Frans Hals.  The two paintings, worth $20 million are still missing. 

In France, the 33rd criminal chamber of the Paris Judicial Tribunal held a decision in October in a case where Egypt requested the restitution of Egyptian antiquities within a criminal proceeding against Didier Wormser, who was accused of dealing stolen cultural property from the Saqqara necropolis. The director of the Star of Ishtar gallery, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence. 

In India, November saw disgraced antiques dealer Subhash Kapoor convicted of burglary and the illegal export of 19 antique idols during his first completed trial to date, held in the town of Kumbakonam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.   With more court cases to follow, Kapoor was handed a 10-Year jail sentence for this first conviction.  The judge also imposed sentences on Kapoor's accomplices: Sanjivi Asokan, Marichamy, Packiya Kumar, Sri Ram alias Ulagu and Parthiban. 

In happier news, the last month of the 2022, marked the month where German police successfully recovered 31 of the priceless 18th-century jewellery pieces stolen from  the Royal Palace that houses the historic Green Vault (Gruenes Gewoelbe) in Dresden in 2019.   

Let's hope 2023 is a year of recoveries, more successful prosecutions and an end to conflicts. 


November 2, 2022

A lighter than we had hoped [but not unanticipated] sentence for Subhash Kapoor

 

Arrested while on business in Cologne, Germany on October 30, 2011, after a years-long investigation code named Operation Hidden Idol that ultimately resulted in the issuance of an INTERPOL Red Notice, Subhash Kapoor, the former New York gallerist who once operated Art of the Past, has (at last) been convicted in Tamil Nadu's Kumbakonam court, in the first of several cases against him. 

Extradited from Germany to India, to face charges in a case registered in with the Udayarpalayam police station, Kapoor was handed over by the German authorities to the Idol Wing of the CID police in Chennai on July 13, 2012.  Appearing before the court the next day,  Kapoor pled not guilty to charges relating to the theft of idols from Varadaraja Perumal temple in the state's Ariyalur district.  

Afterward, he was remanded into judicial custody by the Judicial Magistrate, Jayankondam in Ariyalur, and would remain in custody for the next decade, held at Trichy Central Prison in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, while his case proceeded through the judicial process.  While there, other idol theft cases piled up against him; in Vikramangalam, in Veeravanallur, in Palvoor and in Virudhachalam, as well as abroad in the United States and Germany.

Yesterday, the disgraced owner of the New York gallery, Art of the Past was found guilty and sentenced by Chief Judicial Magistrate D Shanmuga Priya under:

IPC penal code section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) carrying with it a three year prison sentence plus a fine. 

IPC penal code section 413 (receives or deals in property which he knows or has reason to believe to be stolen property) carrying with it a three year prison sentence plus a fine. 

IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy) carrying with it a seven year prison sentence plus a fine. *

Other co-conspirators in this case also had sentences handed down.

Sanjivi Asokan, AKA Sanjeevi Asokan, AKA Sanjeeve Asokan, received a two year sentence and fine for violation of IPC penal code section 465 (forgery), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 468 (forgery, for the purpose of cheating), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 471 (use of forged material) a one year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 414 (concealing or disposing of stolen property), and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Marichamy received a seven year sentence and fine for violation of IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Packiya Kumar received a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 465 (forgery), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 468 (forgery, for the purpose of cheating), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 471 (use of forged material), a three year sentence and fine IPC penal code section 411 (receiving stolen property), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 414 (concealing or disposing of stolen property), and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Sri Ram AKA Ulagu received a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and a seven year sentence and fine  for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Parthiban received a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), three years for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and seven years for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).* 

It should be noted that in the United States, the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan filed extradition paperwork for Kapoor in July 2020 after charging him with 86 felony counts for allegedly looting $145 million in antiquities over the last 30 years. 

Last month, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. returned 307 antiquities to India, valued at nearly $4 million. Of those, 235 of those were pursuant to his Office’s investigation of Kapoor.  Five of his co-defendants, in the US court case have already been convicted in the United States. 

To get a look at some of the pieces returned to India handled by members of Kapoor's network, please see our earlier blog post on daylight sentences, reconceiving restitutions and the hard work it takes to restitute pieces to their countries of origin.

*NB: Some of these sentences may run concurrently. 

July 21, 2021

A "Homeland" welcome for Neil Perry-Smith in New York

 

We are standing in front of a single-piece sand-stone sculpture of a serenely smiling cross-legged Shiva being worshipped by the small, dumpy Skanda (Fig. 3), the one the Guimet questioned. It was probably made in the second quarter of the 10th century for Jayavarman IV's new capital at Lingapura, today's Koh Ker, and is possibly a symbol of the king and his son. 'This is spectacular. I was shown a picture of it in pieces in the mid-Eighties. The head of Shiva was off, the arms broken, Skanda's feet broken. I bought it. It arrived in three pieces. Neil Perry-Smith, one of the leading restorers of stone, metal and gold, put it together. These had been clean breaks, there's no restoration.' Indeed, the breaks are invisible. 'Go by the wall so you can see Skanda's face', he says, so that I can observe how the artist has trapped religious bliss in the face. 'I sum it up in one word: adoration.'

After boarding a plane in the UK for New York and arriving yesterday, Neil Perry-Smith surrendered voluntarily to officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in relation to an arrest warrant issued against him through the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for his alleged role in an international smuggling ring that trafficked in stolen works of art.  According to Manhattan Assistant District Attorneys Matthew Bogdanos and Christopher Hirsch, the well-organized smuggling network is believed to have laundered hundreds of objects out of India and other source countries onto the licit art market in an operation that is believed to have lasted for as long as thirty years. 

On 8 July 2019 arrest warrants were issued for eight defendants involved in the scheme listing a total of 213 Counts, ranging from grand larceny to criminal possession of stolen property.  The original 28 counts listed against Perry-Smith in the Manhattan complaint were:

1. PL 165.54 Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree (7 counts)
2. PL 155.40(1) Grand Larceny in the Second Degree (5 counts)
3. PL 165.52 Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree (13 counts)
4. PL 165.50 Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Third Degree (1 count)
5. PL 105.10(1) Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree (1 count)
6. PL 190.65(1)(b) Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree (1 count)

**Note:  It there now seems to be an additional 29th count. 

In that previous DANY's painstakingly detailed felony arrest warrant, it is alleged that Perry-Smith was one of at least seven individuals identified through their investigation who participated in an international criminal network handling material later sold by disgraced ancient art dealer Subhash Kapoor and his former gallery Art of the Past, once located at 1242 Madison Avenue, in New York. 

As a result of this ongoing international investigation into this network's operations, officers with DHS-HSI, working with the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan conducted a total of twelve raids, resulting in the seizure of 2,622 objects valued at no less than $107,682,000 from Kapoor's gallery and numerous storage locations within the jurisdiction of the state of New York. 

The July 2019 Felony Arrest Warrant document listed 72 stolen antiquities possessed by Subhash Kapoor or members of his network from 1986 to 2016 giving an estimated value to the pieces at $79,101,000.  Of those 72, only 33 had been identified and seized by law enforcement as of the summer of 2019.   Thirty-nine other artefacts had still not been located and were estimated to be worth no less than $35,835,000.  Investigators suspect that Kapoor orchestrated to have the missing objects hidden sometime following his initial arrest in Germany in 2011 and prior to his extradition from Europe to India to answer to the charges he faces for the trafficking in ancient artefacts from his home country. 

In July 2020, the Manhattan DA’s Office also filed extradition paperwork for Subhash Kapoor, in answer to their previous arrest warrant relating to his alleged crimes carried out in the United States.  In the meanwhile, Kapoor remains in the high-security block of Tiruchirapalli Central Prison in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu pending the completion of his first trial in India. 

As it relates to Neil Perry-Smith's alleged role, little detail was mentioned in the lengthy July 2019 Felony Arrest Warrant document.  It stated simply that Subhash Kapoor shipped artefacts with forged bills of lading, first to a company in Hong Kong, while arranging for the antiquities to be restored. Those artefacts would then be shipped from Hong Kong onward to either Neil Perry-Smith in London or to Richard Salmon in New York for restoration, who would then work on the objects before forwarding the conserved artefacts on to Kapoor for sale through his New York gallery. 


But yesterday's confirmation of Perry-Smith's surrender to New York authorities elaborates further on the charges awaiting the London restorer.  In their press release,  Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. states that "Smith" is "charged with possessing and restoring 22 stolen pieces, with an estimated value of more than $32 million" including bronze murti, normally housed in temples, representing the goddess Uma Parvati, Naga Buddha, and Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja).  Laundered onto the licit art market, the bronzes Perry-Smith is alleged to have handled have an estimated market value of more than $32 million, all of which were subsequently shipped on to the conspiracy ringleader Subhash Kapoor for sale in his Manhattan gallery. 



But as we can read from the November 2008 quote excerpted at the top of this blog post, we know that Neil Perry-Smith also restored works of ancient art for at least one other suspect ancient art dealer also previously under indictment for the handling of looted antiquities. 

Shiva and Skanda
10th Century CE 130 cm
Taken from an interview article in Apollo Magazine, we learn that Perry-Smith restored a 10th century Cambodian  Khmer sculpture of Shiva & Skanda for the deceased British art collector and dealer Douglas A.J. Latchford.  One that, in Latchford's own words, arrived to the Thai-based collector-dealer broken in three pieces, with clean breaks.  Clean breaks are a tell-tale sign that the artwork may have been intentionally broken, with breaks such as these, along specific, easily repairable points being done to ease transport and future reassembly, when large cumbersome sculptures are removed from their find spots by looters. 

Prior to his death, Bangkok-based Latchford, had himself been indicted, in November 2019,  in the US Federal Court of the Southern District of New York for wire fraud, smuggling, conspiracy, and related charges pertaining to his own alleged trafficking in stolen and looted antiquities from India and Southeast Asia.  Once considered a pre-eminent collector and expert of Cambodian antiquities, the disgraced 88-year-old Latchford died on 2 August 2020 at his home in Bangkok before his case could be brought to trial in the United States.

Prior to Latchford's indictment, the Cambodian Ministry of Culture also identified Neil Perry-Smith's UK-based Private Limited Company Neil F. Perry as the restorer who worked with Jonathan Tucker and Antonia Tozer's London firm Asian Art Resources.  Tucker and Tozier had brokered the sale of 10 restored Angkorian-era gold jewellery pieces that, like so many others, had appeared on the ancient art market via Douglas A.J. Latchford's network, with no known legitimate provenance.  These pieces had been published in Latchford's and Emma C. Bunker's 2008 book:  Khmer Gold: Gifts for the Gods and were ultimately forfeited voluntarily to the Kingdom of Cambodia in April 2017. 

It remains to be seen what concrete evidence, if any, Neil Perry-Smith can, or will, choose to share with the authorities about the pieces he handled originating from both Douglas Latchford's and Subhash Kapoor's networks.  But with 29 counts now racked up against him, we suspect he won't feel ambivalent about giving up what he knows, trading testimony for the expectation of possible sentencing discounts. 

April 20, 2021

Restitution: Manhattan and US authorities hand over 33 artefacts stolen from the the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Image Credit - HSI ICE

Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, has been plagued by war and corruption.  That vulnerability has long made it a target for looters, many of whom have stripped thousands of Buddhist and Hindu antiquities, some dating back more than 1,800 years, from their find spots.  But while decades of conflict have devastated the Afghanistan countryside and left its populations impoverished, its dealers like Subhash Kapoor with his tony Art of the Past gallery on Madison Avenue in New York who turned other peoples' misery and misfortune into personal profit.  

Kapoor's clients turned a blind eye to the provenance of the artworks he procured, as did important museum institutions who readily purchased work through the dealer or accepted tainted donations from his well-heeled clients with regularly.  As seen in the restitutions over the last month, this network involved with this single New York ancient art dealer was able to source, procure, and sell illicit material from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Southeast Asia, and southern India, often in quantities of a staggering scale.                                                                            But this week, thirty-three of those plundered artworks were handed over to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, via its first female Ambassador to the United States, Roya Rahmani.  In accepting these artefacts Ambassador Rahami knowledgeably stated: 

“The environment that allows for the plundering of Afghanistan’s treasured antiquities is the same environment that allows for the perpetuation of conflict...traffickers are not just robbing Afghanistan of its history, they are perpetuating a situation where peace does not manifest and the region does not stabilize. Looting Afghanistan’s past is looting Afghanistan’s future.

Image Credit: The office of Afghan ambassador, Roya Rahmani

Image Credit: The office of Afghan ambassador, Roya Rahmani

The 33 artefacts restituted this week were part of a hoard of 2,500 objects valued at $143 million which were seized between 2012 and 2014 as a result of the Subhash Kapoor investigation and the ongoing case being built against the dealer in the United States.  Since August 2020, the Manhattan DA's office, their Antiquities Trafficking Unit and their partners at Homeland Security Investigations have successfully restituted 338 stolen objects to seven countries.

Image Credit - HSI ICE

As we can see from the substantial number of restitutions over the last four weeks, including two artefacts to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and three 13 - 16th century CE artefacts stolen from the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, the breadth of the problem of illicit material in liberal circulation on the legitimate ancient art market is not a minor problem, but rather something more pernicious.  

Despite this, the New York success stories over the last month demonstrate what public prosecutors can do, when art crimes are given a higher priority.  Allocating sufficient resources and allowing collaborative access to experts can serve to facilitate successful law enforcement investigations into criminal activity within the ancient art market which stretches over years and between jurisdictions.  The result being the plundered heritage can be confiscated and returned back home in accordance with the laws of particular jurisdictions involved.

Restitution: Manhattan and US authorities hand over three 13 - 16th century CE artefacts stolen from the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

One week after its last restitution, on the first of April, the Consulate General of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal in New York received three more Kapoor-handled artefacts at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Those artefacts were: 

  • a 13th century CE wooden beam depicting a colored Apsara
  • a 14th-15th century CE gold seated Buddha in Bhumisparsa Mudra, 
  • a 15th-16th century CE seated Ganesha 
All three of these ancient objects were seized pursuant to the Manhattan DA's investigation of antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor.  In furtherance of the occasion, Consulate General Mr. Bishnu Prasad Gautam, and District Attorney of New York County Mr. Cyrus Vance Jr. signed an agreement establishing the recovery, hand over, and repatriation of the antiquities to the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.  


Mr. Gautam expressed his thanks to the United States Department of Homeland Security and Acting Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Eric Silverman, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr., and Assistant D.A. Matthew Bogdanos, Senior Trial Counsel and Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, who handled the recovery of the Nepali artefacts along with Special Agents Brenton Easter and John Paul Labbat and Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer of the Manhattan DA's office. 


The Nepal officials honoured those responsible for the artefacts' restitution,  bestowing them with a traditional Tibetan Khata, a scarf offered as a symbol of respect and gratitude.  

To date, several investigations have tracked many false provenances provided by Subhash Kapoor. This methodology of back-tracking an artefact to its theft site and searching out the smuggling methods from the source country to Kapoor's U.S. gallery and the collectors who purchased from him has led to several recoveries.  One of those, a 10th- or 11th-century mūrti of Lakshmi-Narayana (Sanskrit: लक्ष्मी-नारायण, IAST: Lakṣmīnārāyaṇa), a manifestation of Vishnu in the Hindu religion disappeared from the Narayan Temple in the Patko Tol neighbourhood in Patan, in 1984.  That sacred object was eventually purchased six years later in March 1990 by David T. Owsley, (a client of Kapoor's) who in turn lent the object to the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA).  On 2 March 2021 officials from the Dallas FBI Field Office and the Dallas Museum of Art announced the voluntary restitution and formal transfer of that mūrti back to the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.


Restitution: Manhattan and US authorities hand over two Kandyan Period artefacts depicting the Lord Buddha in Abhaya Mudra stolen from the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

As can be seen, by the restitutions accomplished via Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's team over the last month, New York continues to lead the way in the United States in making a significant impact in the identification and restitution of unprovenanced artefacts; objects which fuel a transnational trade in stolen objects and the depredation of both sacred and archaeological sites.

Image Credit: Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations New York

Looking back over the last month, on Thursday, March 25th the DA's office in Manhattan handed over a pair of Kandyan Period (18th Century) Sri Lankan artefacts depicting the Lord Buddha in Abhaya Mudra, which were seized pursuant to ongoing investigations into the dealings of ancient art dealer Subhash Kapoor.  These historic objects represent the first two sacred artefacts to be returned to Sri Lanka from the United States.

Abhaya in Sanskrit means fearlessness, and the abhayamudrā symbolizes protection both aptly fitting to the commitment of the New York DA's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, led by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, who, along with his team of analysts, collaborates with officers of the Homeland Security Investigations, all of whom strive to identify and pursue those who seek to profit from the trade in illegally exported cultural property. 

Assistant D.A. Matthew Bogdanos, Senior Trial Counsel and Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit handled the Sri Lankan recovery along with Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer and Special Agents Brenton Easter and John Paul Labbat from Homeland Security Investigations. 

Ambassador Pieris and Asst. District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos exchange agreements establishing the recovery, hand over and repatriation of the antiquities.

Arrested on 30 October 2011 in Frankfurt, Germany and extradited to India in July of 2012, Subhash Kapoor is presently jailed at the Tiruchirapalli Central Prison.  In India he is on trial for smuggling 28 idols from the Sundareswarar temple, the Varadaraja Perumal temple, and from the Arulmigu Pragatheeswarar temple in Tamil Nadu.  The 71-year-old former Manhattan-based dealer will then have to answer to additional charges in the US, for his role in what prosecutors believe was a $145 million smuggling ring which prosecutors charged laundered stolen artefacts from many countries through his gallery Art of the Past.  

Law enforcement authorities in several countries believe that over a period spanning some thirty years, the disreputable dealer handled thousands of looted antiquities incentivising plunder from those within his network.  Pursuant to the USA/New York investigation, the D.A.’s Office and HSI have recovered more than 2,500 artworks, all believed to have been handled by Kapoor's web of middle-tier dealers, thieves, and smugglers between 2011 to 2020.  The bulk of these historic artefacts were pillaged from heritage sites in Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. 

The restitution ceremony for the Sri Lankan pieces in New York was attended by H.E. Ambassador Mohan Pieris, Permanent Representative of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Satya Rodrigo, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Asst. District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos, members of the District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, as well as HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Peter C. Fitzhugh, HSI Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Erik Rosenblatt, HSI Group Supervisor Stephen Lee, and HSI Special Agents John Paul Labbat, Robert Fromkin and Igor Gamza of Homeland Security Investigations.  District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr joined the official ceremony virtually. 

Ambassador Pieris, Satya Rodrigo, DPR, Special Agent John Paul Labbat & Apsara Iyer, Antiquities Trafficking Analyst
Image Credit: Permanent Mission of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York

For Sri Lankan's thoughts, H.E. Mohan Pieris, reminded listeners that:

Cultural property is intrinsically related to the evolution of a nation’s identity. It forms a vital link to the past, wherefrom the present and future may be nurtured and enriched. It is therefore a moment of joy and cultural renewal when artefacts are recovered and returned to their rightful owners. Regrettably, however, we are dismayed to know that for every return there are thousands that are stolen, looted and trafficked through underground and illicit channels.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., for his part, stated that his office issued an arrest warrant for Subhash Kapoor in 2012, followed by a criminal complaint in 2019 that estimated that the “total value of stolen antiquities known to have been trafficked by Kapoor exceeds USD 145.71 million”.  Extradition paperwork has been formally filed in Manhattan in July 2020 which will ensure that Kapoor will face justice in New York as well as in India for the crimes he has been charged within New York's jurisdiction. 

On Monday, the first of April the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. announced a further return of artefacts, related to this ring of traffickers, this time to the people of Nepal.

August 11, 2020

Dying to get away with it: How one defendant's death may thwart justice for the people of Cambodia, Thailand, and India

Douglas Latchford's Facebook page photo
on 9 November 2017, two years
before he was indicted in the USA
Wire fraud,
smuggling,
conspiracy to commit wire fraud,
conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States,
and entry of goods by means of false statements.

These were the five related charges pertaining to the trafficking in stolen and looted antiquities that art expert Douglas A. J. Latchford, a/k/a “Pakpong Kriangsak” had been charged with in the 26-page indictment unsealed by the Department of Justice's U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York last November.  But since deceased persons cannot be prosecuted, the charges against Latchford will likely be dismissed by the court, once his death certificate, attesting to his demise on 2 August 2020, has been submitted to the court through his defense counsel.

Before the investigation into the smuggling and illicit sale of priceless antiquities from Cambodia, Thailand and India cast a long shadow over Latchford's activities, he was once considered a highly respected sponsor in museum circles, a person above reproach.  As such, his donations to the National Museum of Phnom Penh earned him a knighthood with the Royal Order of Saha Metrey Thnak Thib Badin, by the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia, an honor conferred with an award brooch, pinned primarily on foreigners who have rendered distinguished services to the King and to the people of Cambodia.

Apparently unaware of Latchford's role in plundering, Hab Touch, then Director General of the Department General of Cultural Affairs, now Secretary of State and high representative of Phoeurng Sackona, Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts in Cambodia once said of Latchford:

“His gifts are very important because these artifacts teach the Cambodian people about their history...We hope his generosity will set a good example for others.”

Other pieces acquired directly or indirectly through Latchford's network also dotted collections at many important art institutions, where, at the time of their acquisitions, questions of provenance didn't seem to bother the museum's renowned curators.

Latchford is known to have donated at least seven objects to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York including the Kneeling Attendants (restituted), the stone head of a Buddha, and the bronze head of a Shiva, both from the 10th-century Khmer Angkor period.  He also donated four statues to the Denver Art Museum.

Other Latchford pieces found their way through direct or indirect sales and donations to US collections at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the Denver Art Museum and the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth.  Yet, Latchford's purported acts of generosity were not just for USA museums' benefit.  His hands also touched objects lent to the Berlin Museum for Ancient Art and to the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam.

By 2012, the tracks of the looters of the tenth-century site of Koh Ker lead repeatedly to Latchford.  Identified in a civil lawsuit as a middleman in the trafficking of looted Khmer sculptures from “an organized looting network,” he was alleged to have conspired with the London auction house Spink & Son Ltd., to obtain false export permits for the temple antiquities he brokered.

Some of the incriminating evidence against the dealer relates to a series of brazenly written emails.  One sent on 23 April 2007,  which left little to no doubt about Latchford's level of direct involvement and knowledge in transnational criminal activity against cultural artifacts.

Douglas Latchford's Facebook
photo on 28 October 2017,
two years before he was
indicted in the USA
In that email, Latchford is reported to have written:

"Hold on to your hat, just been offered this 56 cm Angkor Borei Buddha, just excavated, which looks fantastic. It’s still across the border, but WOW.”

Attached to the same brazen email was a photograph.  It depicted a freshly (and clandestinely) excavated standing Buddha statue, still freshly covered in dirt. 

A Manhattan DA's complaint also asserted that Latchford contrived to traffic in antiquities that coinvolved another ancient art dealer under investigation, Nancy Wiener. Citing another email seized by investigators, Latchford reportedly told Weiner that he would give bronze statues to his colleague Emma C. Bunker, in exchange for false provenance.  Sadly, and as if facilitating the plunder of Cambodia and Thailand were not enough, Latchford is known to have purchased, a Chandrasekara Shiva, a Chola bronze idol, stolen from the Sripuranthan temple in Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu through another bad actor in the art market, dealer Subash Kapoor,

The same Emma C. Bunker worked closely with Latchford writing three seminal volumes on the art of the Khmer people: “Adoration and Glory: The Golden Age of Khmer Art,” “Khmer Gold,” and “Khmer Bronzes.”  Flipping through each of these image-heavy books one can easily understand the pathway to profit involving the plundered and missing cultural patrimony of Cambodia.

Asked in a 2014 interview, who held most of the orphan artworks depicted in the books, Latchford was cagey.  He answered saying they were held by collectors who trusted him to keep their identities confidential, leaving many unanswered questions that this dealer now takes to his grave, as sadly, dead men tell no tales.

By:  Lynda Albertson

June 5, 2020

Virtual restitutions in the age of Coronavirus and Australian bush fires


On 27 November 2019 the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally announced that as a result of criminal law proceedings underway in India and the United States against New York art dealer Subhash Kapoor, Australia would be voluntarily returning three culturally significant sculptures to India.  Five days later, on 2 December 2019 the Australian Government's Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications - Office for the Arts announced that the three artworks would be formally given back to the Indian authorities during the Prime Minister's visit to India, in January 2020.

Prime Minister Morrison was scheduled to travel to India on 13 January 2020 for bilateral meetings between Australia and India, at the invitation of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.  The pair planned to hand over the artworks and discuss the global economy before Morrison headed on to other meetings in Japan.  Those plans, however, fell by the wayside as Australia battled for control over the country's raging bush fires which continued unabated until mid-February, a result of the country's prolonged drought.

The next hiccup to the scheduled meeting and handover was the world-encompassing epidemic, the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). 


Months later, opting for safety and security over politics, as coronavirus cases in India saw a record single-day jump of 9,304, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi held their first-ever “Bilateral Virtual Summit” on the 4th of June 2020.  This occasion, focused on comprehensive strategic partnerships between India and Australia, and was the occasion to allow Morrison to virtually hand over the pair of 15th century, Vijayanagar dynasty door guardians (Darapala) from Tamil Nadu, and a 6-8th century sandstone statue of the serpent king (Nagaraja) from Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh, in India.



Speaking with S. Vijay Kumar of the India Pride Project, a volunteer organization involved in documenting and tracking stolen Indian artifacts, Mr. Kumar had this to say about the current restitutions:

"The return of the two door guardians, bought by the NGA for USD 495,000 in August 2005 and stolen from Tamil Nadu and the Nagaraja purchased for USD 337,500 in April 2006 from Madhya Pradesh will bring closure to an eight year struggle with the National Gallery of Australia which started with us, along with Mr. Jason Felch exposing the robber photos, showing the objects freshly looted against a vesti and lungi background. We also proved the fake provenance of the certificates issued by Art of Past for these purchases way back in 2015. 

The returns are important as they provide much-needed impetus to the sagging criminal trial of Subhash Kapoor by exposing the nexus between him and his associates. The Nagaraja was smuggled out of India sometime in 1999 by the mastermind of the illicit trafficking network in India who went by the codename "SHANTOO" who we now know is Ranjit Kanwar (but whom has yet to be arrested/traced by Indian law enforcement) but more importantly of the Prakash brothers who ran IndoNepal - who smuggled the two door guardians out of India sometime before 2002.  

These individuals have been named in the case filing on Kapoor in NYC Aug 2019 by US authorities, providing graphic details of how these stolen artefacts  are cleaned by intermediaries - in this case Solomon who has been since charged with abetting this crime for cleaning and removing any trace of dirt, etc from the Nagaraja and also how Subhash Kapoor used an old typewriter and some old stationery to fool the largest public museum in Australia.


The two Dwarapalas will be sent to India's Idol wing of Tamil Nadu which has registered a theft case related to the pair.  The Serpent King will initially go to the Red Fort Archaeological Museum located in the Mumtaz Mahal of the Red Fort in Delhi.

Kumar, Felch, and arts reporter Michaela Boland have long pushed for the examination and return of suspect Kapoor pieces, imploring the NGA to look closely at the provenance of all works in the museum's collection which were purchased by this dealer or his affiliates.  Extradited to India in July 2012, Kapoor remains incarcerated at Tiruchirappalli Central Prison awaiting the conclusion of his trial in India.  Afterward, the 70-year-old would likely be extradited to the United States to face 86 felony counts for allegedly looting $145 million in antiquities over the last 50 years.

By:  Lynda Albertson

August 21, 2019

Restitution: The grassroots work of the IPP pays off again.

Image Credit: Rahul Nangare, 
Indian Revenue Service Diplomat, First Secretary
High Commission of India, London
On August 15, the High Commissioner of India in London accepted the return of two objects looted from India.  The first was a 1st Century BCE - 1st Century CE carved limestone railing, which experts believe may have possibly been stolen from the Buddhist complex at Vaddamānu in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.  The second item, was a 17th century Indian bronze figure depicting the Krishna as Balakrishna, standing on a lotus base.  The Hindu deity is naked except for his jeweled ornaments, dancing with his right leg raised, holding a ball of butter in his right hand.  This statue is believed to have been taken from the area of Tamil Nadu, the Indian state located in the extreme south of the subcontinent.

Both objects were voluntarily relinquished by an unnamed collector said to have purchased the objects via an also unnamed individual, long implicated in illicit trafficking. This unnamed dealer is presumed to be Subhash Kapoor.

For the uninitiated, Vaddamānu in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district might not ring any bells.  But for S. Vijay Kumar, a Singapore-based Indian trafficking expert and co-founder of the India Pride Project, the area is of considerable historic importance and one subject to looting.  ARCA has also noted that excavations in the area have yielded railing pillars, carved in limestone ('Palnad marble), similar to the one that has just been restituted.  One example of such is pictured here. These objects, along with cross-bars, copings, and other architectural elements were used in ancient Vihara and Stupa, some which date as far back as the Mauryan Empire (322 BCE - 185 BCE).  At Buddhist sites such as these, carved stone railings, sometimes square in plan, but more often circular, were used to define the confines of religious sites and could also have been used as decoration to delineate an external processional path.

Both of these recently restituted pieces came to the attention of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) when the London-based collector who possessed them contacted the agency wanting to voluntarily surrender the objects to their rightful home.  The pieces are believed to have been purchased the objects via Subhash Kapoor, a disgraced ancient art dealer arrested in Europe and later extradited.  Kapoor is currently in Indian custody in the high security block of Tiruchirapalli Central Prison in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.  There he awaits trial on criminal cases for illegally exporting idols and artefacts from plundered temples.

On 08 July 2019, the Manhattan District Attorney's office followed suit with the Indian government and filed their own formal criminal charges against Kapoor and seven other co-conspirators.  In the court's documentation,  the well organized smuggling ring is believed to have smuggled $145 USD million worth of objects out of India and in to market countries in an operation believed to have lasted for as long as thirty years. Arrest warrants have been issued for all eight defendants on a total of 213 Counts, ranging from grand larceny to criminal possession of stolen property.  


The co-conspirators listed in the July New York Criminal Complaint for Subhash Kapoor et al are: 

Sanjeeve Asokan - Asokan was arrested and charged as a co defendant to Kapoor in India in March 2009.  According to details outlined in the Indian criminal complaint Subhash Chandra Kapoor vs Inspector of Police, para 3., Asokan's involvement in the illicit trafficking ring extended to driving with individual looters to particular villages in Tamil Nadu in order to identify temples which were vulnerable to theft.  Having identified accessible antiquities ripe for the taking, it is alleged that Asokan then supplied the stolen artworks to Kapoor in the United States.  Shipping the loot in staggered shipments from India to lesson the impact of possibly losing an entire shipment should there be a customs seizure.  While awaiting trial in India Asokan is being detained since 25 March 2009 under the Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders and Slum-Grabbers (Act 14 of 1982).  As a co-conspirator in the New York case he has been charged with 21 Counts including Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree (9 Counts), Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree (10 Counts), Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Third Degree (1 Count), and one Count of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree.

Dean Dayal (also spelled Deen Dayal) - IAs earli as 2016 HSI special agents worked with Tamil Nadu law enforcement authorities to arrest Dayal, and other trafficking co-conspirators in Chennai, India.  As a result of that investigation Dayal was implicated as being one of the principles on the ground behind the actual thefts at targeted temples.  In New York Dayal now faces a total of 5 Counts including Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree (4 Counts) and one count of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree.

Ranjeet Kanwar (now well known as "Shantoo") - Kanwar was named in an earlier criminal complaint in Manhattan Criminal Court, signed by Special Agent Brenton Easter of the Department of Homeland Security against New York art dealer Nancy Wiener. According to statements by a former employee of Kapoor, Kanwar was one of Subhash Kapoor's alleged suppliers of stolen antiquities.  His name appears on a computer disk file folder that contained at least three pictures of  looted Seated Buddha #1 found at the Sofia Bros. Storage, in New York County, a storage facility rented by Subhash Kapoor. Kanwar faces a total of 4 Counts in New York including Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree (1 Count), Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree (2 Counts), and one Count of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree.

Vallabh Prakash - In November 2016 authorities in Indian reopened a then 11-year-old case with the help of HSI special agents, which served to identify the smugglers of the now repatriated religious stone idol of Vriddhachlam Ardhanari. Vallabh Prakash and his son, two antique dealers in Mumbai, operated Indo-Nepal Art Centre, a gallery which offered the stolen Ardhanari to Subhash Kapoor and who together smuggled the statue into the United States. Kapoor later sold this idol with false paperwork to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2004.  Father and Son were arrested in India in November 2017. Vallabh Prakash now faces a total of 11 Counts in New York including Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree (10 Counts) and one Count of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree.

Aditya Prakash - As mentioned above in November 2016 authorities in Indian reopened a then 11-year-old case with the help of HSI special agents, which served to identify the smugglers of the now repatriated religious stone idol of Vriddhachlam Ardhanari. The son of Vallabh Prakash, Aditya Prakash, was co-proprietor of the Indo-Nepal Art Centre along with his father.  Arrested together with his father in 2017 several cases are still pending against the duo in Nellai, Palavur and Viruddhachalam. It is believed that many of the stolen idols from the temples in Tamil Nadu were smuggled through the involvement of this family, including 13 idols from the Sri Narambunatha Swamy Temple, Pazhavoor in Tirunelveli district on the Tirunelveli-Kanniyakumari border.  Aditya Prakash faces an additional 11 Counts in New York including Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree (10 Counts) and one Count of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree.



Subhash Kapoor himself is listed in a total of 86 Counts in the recent New York charging document.  His charges include Grand Larceny in the First Degree (1 Count), Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the First Degree (16 Counts), Grand Larceny in the Second Degree (13 Counts), Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree (50 Counts), Grand Larceny in the Third Degree (1 Count) Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Third Degree (3 Counts), Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree (1 Count) and one Count of Scheme and Defraud in the First Degree.

Before Kapoor's arrest on 30 October 2011 at Frankfurt International Airport for the charges he faces in India and his subsequent extradition from Germany to India on 14 July 2012, the influential dealer was widely feted in New York art circles.  In connection with his business, he maintained contacts around the globe, in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bangkok, Bangladesh, Dubai, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, with several of his associates implicated in shipping and selling stolen objects supplied with fake provenance to hide their illicit origin. At the height of his operation, Kapoor personally visited Tamil Nadu frequently which underscores the intimacy of the collector-dealer-smuggler-looter network as it relates to these cases.

Reflective of and similar to the recent restitution, Kapoor's name has already been tied to looted antiquities from Andhra Pradesh, the zone where the limestone railing returned via the UK originates from.  In 2016, a 3rd century CE stone panel, illegally exported from India, originating from the Satavahana-era Buddhist Complex of Chandavaram. was also returned to India by the National Gallery of Australia.  In that instance, the museum stated that it had been duped into purchasing the carving from Kapoor’s Art of the Past gallery for $595,000 USD in 2005 after the dealer provided themuseum with falsified provenance documentation indicating that the object had left the country of origin before the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.  That object was later clearly identified as having been stolen from the Chandavaram site museum in 2001.


Terracotta Rattle in the form of a Yaksha 
Metropolitan Museum Accession Number: 1990.309
Likely as a result of the increased pressure by grassroots organizations such as India Pride Project and law enforcement and prosecutors pressing formal charges against actors in the US, UK and India, two museums in the United States are finally taking action in evaluating the ethics of retaining prized antiquities within their collections, which are likely tied to Kapoor's illegal activities. According to an article in the New York Times, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has at least 15 antiquities known to be directly or indirectly associated with Subhash Kapoor which have been acquired after 1990.

The first, the terracotta rattle pictured at left in the form of yakshas (male nature spirit), dates to the 1st Century BCE Shunga period, comes from the archaeological site of Chandraketugarh in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is documented in the Met's collection with no other provenance aside from a passing mention that it was purchased from Kapoor's now shuttered Madison Avenue gallery, Art of the Past.

At the time of Kapoor's arrest in Europe, the Met's management and curatorial staff showed little interest whatsoever in reviewing the legitimacy of the Kapoor linked pieces within their collection.  This despite the spartan provenance which accompanied many of his objects and the fact that it has been proven in other instances that the network falsified provenance documentation.

Now, perhaps in hindsight, and in the wake of recent embarrassing seizures, including an Egyptian mummiform coffin, inscribed in the name of Nedjemankh, an Italian Bell-Krater by Python and a Lebanese marble head of a bull it seems that the Met has finally decided it might be prudent to rethink its stance on some of its art acquisitions from India.

Image Credit:  S. Vijay Kumar
Via Twitter 8 February 2019
Likewise on 20 August 2019 it was finally announced that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art had come round to deaccessioning its own contested Buddha.  First identified by India Pride Project in February 2018 and related to the same theft as the restituted Nalanda Buddha identified at Maastricht's TEFAF in 2018, LACMA had, until recently, resisted acknowledging that the bronze in their collection was stolen 58 years ago.  This despite the fact that the bronze was matched via an image India Pride Project had obtained of 14 objects stolen from the Nalanda Archaeological Museum of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in Nalanda, Bihar, India in 1961.  Despite this overwhelming evidence, it took almost a year and a half of pressuring the museum,  pursuing India’s claim, for LACMA to decide to deaccession the stolen bonze.

All too often, even when faced with proof of illicit origin, museums weigh the rarity or price of their acquisition above the ethical responsibility of voluntarily restituting objects found to have passed through the illicit market.  When they do, they overlook the cumulative cultural cost of lost art to poorer and more vulnerable source countries such as, in this case, India.  It is critical to remember that each and every object stolen or looted, whether or not the statute of limitations has expired, presents a loss to the source nation's cultural patrimony, and when there are many objects plundered, as can be seen within this one trafficking network, each of these losses has a cumulative negative effect.

Those working in the black market bank of the fact that many sculptures stolen from small villages are less likely to be reported to the police, and if they are reported, that not much is achieved because little documentation is made outlining the details surrounding the theft or the object itself making it difficult to determine the actors involved.  Thankfully illicit antiquities researchers, and now more often key prosecutors, like those in New York, are willing to consider the evidence collected by diligent researchers and scholars, as well as reviewing the historic records of civil servants, even retired ones, in order to access overlooked details like old photographs and museum records which can sometimes help determine in determining if the provenance provided to contested pieces is fact or fiction.

By:  Lynda Albertson