New York Files Charges Against Disgraced Art Dealer Subhash Kapoor in $145 Million Smuggling Ring: Subhash Kapoor will be extradited to the US following the completion of his long-running trial in India.
by Sarah Cascone
artnetnews
July 11, 2019
This Ganesha statue purchased by the Toledo Museum of Art from Subhash Kapoor in 2006 was looted, and was returned to India. Photo courtesy of the Toledo Museum of Art.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has filed criminal charges against Indian art dealer Subhash Kapoor and seven coconspirators, charging them with operating a $145 million smuggling ring that dealt with thousands of looted antiquities over a period of 30 years. The arrest warrants for the eight men were filed Monday in New York City criminal court. It is the latest chapter of an ongoing international legal saga that has been getting knottier over the course of almost a decade.
Kapoor’s alleged wrongdoings were first made public in 2011, when he was arrested in Germany on suspicion of dealing in looted artworks after a years-long investigation codenamed Operation Hidden Idol. He is currently on trial in India, where he has been behind bars since July 2012. The new charges include 86 counts, from grand larceny to criminal possession of stolen property.
“It’s a fairly robust and complex complaint,” Kapoor’s lawyer, Georges Lederman of Pearlstein McCullough & Lederman LLP, told artnet News. He notes that at least one of the charges in the complaint filed in New York duplicates a crime for which Kapoor is on trial in India—an issue that will have to be sorted out by a judge.
Now age 70, Kapoor was a respected member of New York’s art community, helping museums around the world acquire important antiquities from Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Thailand, sometimes through high-profile donations. But he has also been described as “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world,” as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent James T. Hayes told looted antiquities blog Chasing Aphrodite.
In 2012, authorities revealed that they had seized $100 million in stolen ancient art from the dealer’s storage facilities. More than 2,600 ancient statues, artworks, and other artifacts have been recovered to date, some as recently as 2016.
Subhash Kapoor.
Kapoor duped many museums over the years, both by loaning them illicit artworks to make them seem more legitimate to prospective buyers, and by selling them the stolen objects. “These are, in many instances, priceless works that represent the culture and history of the countries from which they were stolen,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. told the Associated Press. “They are of enormous value.”
The National Gallery of Australia filed a lawsuit against the disgraced dealer in 2014 over a $5.6 million Chola-era bronze, titled Shiva as Lord of the Dance, and returned the looted statue to India, one of at least two turned over by the Australian government in connection with the case. Later that year, Ohio’s Toledo Museum of Art followed suit, repatriating an Indian antiquity purchased from Kapoor, as did the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and the Honolulu Museum of Art.
A sandstone stele of Rishabhanata from the 10th century, believed looted, seized in a raid of Christie’s as part of an international investigation into former dealer Subhash Kapoor. Photo courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security.
According to the new criminal complaint against Kapoor, 36 looted objects worth an estimated $36 million are yet to be recovered, having been hidden by family members and trusted associates immediately following his 2011 arrest. Investigators based the charges on records seized from the Art of the Past, Kapoor’s former New York gallery, which included false import licenses, provenance records, and invoices.
Some of the alleged coconspirators are art restorers, believed to have cleaned the dirt off freshly unearthed antiquities to prepare them for sale, allowing Kapoor to present them as legally obtained treasures. Among them, according to the complaint, is British antiquities restorer Neil Perry Smith and Brooklyn-based restorer Richard Salmon. The authorities have asked Interpol for international arrest warrants for the suspects, who reside in India, London, and New York.
Meanwhile, US officials are requesting Kapoor’s extradition following the completion of his trial, presumably within a year, according to Lederman. “The trial is taking a very long time,” he said. “We should be guided by the prospect of extradition to the United States within a year.”
****************************
A Former Top Manhattan Art Dealer Has Been Charged in an Antiquities Smuggling Racket
by Jim Mustian
AP 11:35 PM EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — An art dealer who authorities called one of the most prolific smugglers in the world and seven others were charged with trafficking more than $140 million in stolen antiquities, prosecutors said Wednesday. Authorities described the case as one of the largest of its kind, saying the conspiracy began more than three decades ago and involved more than 2,600 recovered artifacts, including statues and ancient masterworks.
A criminal complaint filed in Manhattan state court said the smuggling was orchestrated by Subhash Kapoor, a New York art gallery owner who was arrested in Germany in 2011 and later extradited to India, where he faces similar charges.
An email seeking comment was sent to Kapoor’s defense attorney.
The prosecution involves artifacts stolen from Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Pakistan and other countries that were sold for profit to dealers and collectors around the world. Some of the items appeared in world-renowned museums without officials realizing they were ill-gotten gains.
“These are, in many instances, priceless works that represent the culture and history of the countries from which they were stolen,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. told The Associated Press in an interview. “They are of enormous value.”
In all, authorities said, the network trafficked more than $143 million worth of antiquities. The international investigation was called “Operation Hidden Idol.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has described Kapoor as “one of the most prolific art smugglers in the world.” He faces 86 counts in the criminal complaint, including grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.
The lead prosecutor, Matthew Bogdanos, told the AP that none of the defendants is believed to be in the United States. He said the authorities asked Interpol to issue international warrants for their arrest.
Kapoor, 70, owned the Art of the Past gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which authorities raided in early 2012.
The criminal complaint says Kapoor went to extraordinary lengths to acquire the artifacts, many of them statues of Hindu deities, and then falsified their provenance with forged documents.
It says Kapoor traveled the world seeking out antiquities that had been looted from temples, homes and archaeological sites.
Some of the artifacts were recovered from Kapoor’s storage units in New York.
Prosecutors said Kapoor had the items cleansed and repaired to remove any damage from illegal excavation, and then illegally exported them to the United States from their countries of origin.
“Kapoor would also loan stolen antiquities to major museums and institutions,” the complaint says, “creating yet another false veneer of legitimacy by its mere presence in otherwise reputable museums and institutions.”
The other defendants in the case include suppliers and restorers accused of conspiring with Kapoor.
****************************
National Gallery of Australia Sues Dealer Over Stolen Antiquities
by Sarah Cascone
February 16, 2014
"Shiva as Lord of the Dance or Nataraja." Cica 11th century, Indian bronze statue.
The National Gallery of Australia is suing art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who sold the museum an allegedly stolen 11th-century Indian statue in 2008. The Chola-era bronze, titled Shiva as Lord of the Dance, or Nataraja, was purchased at Kapoor’s Art of the Past in New York for $5 million.
The lawsuit, filed with New York’s Supreme Court, accuses the gallery of fraud and seeks to reclaim the $5 million purchase price plus legal fees. The statue was allegedly stolen between January and November of 2006 from the Sivan Temple in the Ariyalur District of Tamil Nadu in southern India. All Indian antiquities are legally the property of the Indian government.
The artwork’s provenance came under question last year, when Aaron M. Freedman, office manager at Art of the Past, pleaded guilty on six counts of criminal possession of stolen property. Court documents for the case listed the Nataraja as having been illegally exported from India via a smuggling ring. The statue is one of 14 items that Australia’s National Gallery purchased from Art of the Past.
Kapoor was first detained on suspicion of stocking his gallery with antiques looted from historic sites in India in 2011. He is currently being held on charges of criminal looting in India.
******************************
Assistant to Accused Antiquities Smuggler Pleads Guilty to Possessing Looted Items
by Tom Mashberg
ArtsBeat
December 4, 2013 10:09 PM December 4, 2013 10:09 pm 2
A statue of Yakshi, a female deity. Credit Manhattan District Attorney's Office
Aaron M. Freedman spent nearly 20 years managing the fine details of life at Subhash Kapoor’s art gallery on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Over that period, ending in 2012, the two men became good friends, shared an expertise in rare Indian artifacts and co-wrote several scholarly works.
On Wednesday, Mr. Freedman, 41, of Princeton, N.J., admitted in New York Supreme Court that he also helped Mr. Kapoor manage the shipment and sale of more than 150 items of looted Indian statuary, items in many cases dating back some 2,000 years.
Mr. Freedman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to six counts of criminal possession of stolen property valued at $35 million and agreed, under his plea, to help Manhattan and federal investigators with their prosecution of Mr. Kapoor, who is accused of smuggling more than $100 million in antiquities from India into the United States.
Mr. Kapoor, 64, is in prison in India but is expected to be extradited for trial in the United States next year.
Investigators are still hunting for dozens of the bronze and sandstone images of Hindu and Buddhist deities that they say were looted and sold over three decades under the supervision of Mr. Kapoor and his confederates.
Storage facilities associated with Mr. Kapoor were raided in 2012 by federal agents, and his gallery, Art of the Past, on Madison Avenue at 89th Street, is no longer operating.
“He is by far the biggest smuggler, in terms of numbers of antiquities stolen and their market value, that we have seen,” said James T. Hayes Jr., the special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in New York.
The authorities said that Mr. Freedman handled the day-to-day details of the gallery for Mr. Kapoor, while also helping to pay off smugglers, concoct false shipping and ownership papers, and arranging for sales to often unsuspecting collectors and museums.
Mr. Freedman’s guilty plea had immediate repercussions for the National Gallery of Australia, which had bought statues and other antiquities from Mr. Kapoor since 2006. For months the museum rejected calls from India to negotiate for the return of some of those artifacts, among them a rare $5 million bronze statuette of the god Shiva performing a dance. It was stolen from the Sivan Temple in India’s Ariyular district in 2006, India officials say.
But in his plea, Mr. Freedman admitted that he and Mr. Kapoor knew the three-foot-high Shiva was stolen when, in 2007, they created a false ownership history for the piece, including forged provenance papers and letters of authenticity. They then imported it illegally into the United States, sold it the museum, and arranged to have it shipped to Canberra, the site of the gallery.
In a statement on Thursday, the museum’s director, Ronald Radford, who approved the purchase, said prosecutors in New York had made him aware of the Freedman plea. He said his attorneys immediately asked the Indian government to “discuss avenues for restitution” and that the gallery will sue Mr. Kapoor.
On Wednesday, Mr. Freedman had told State Supreme Court Acting Justice Charles H. Solomon that his multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in 2005 and that his condition worsened while he worked with Mr. Kapoor.
“I say this not to excuse my involvement with Mr. Kapoor’s criminal activities,” Mr. Freedman said, “but to state that in 2005, after the onset of my disease, obtaining employment at a reputable gallery or auction house was virtually impossible.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is working with federal officials on the case, agreed to release Mr. Freedman on personal recognizance while his cooperation continues.
“We take these crimes very seriously, and as the office manager for Mr. Kapoor, he was the one who made much of it happen,” said an assistant district attorney, Matthew Bogdanos. “On the other hand, Mr. Freedman, I believe, is sincerely and genuinely remorseful and repentant and he has taken significant steps toward making amends.”
Under India’s Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, no art object more than 100 years old may be removed from the country. But since the law was instituted in 1972, antiquities from many Indian temples and heritage sites described as “newly discovered” have been auctioned in New York and London. In four raids at separate sites controlled by Mr. Kapoor in 2012, federal agents say they seized about 90 items worth, in total, more than $100 million, all of them having come out of India after 1972. Another 50 or so items valued at more than $40 million remain missing, and investigators are asking the public to help locate them.
One of the items Mr. Freedman is accused of helping steal and conceal is valued at $15 million and is among the rarest and most cherished statues missing from India. It is identified as the sandstone statue of a Yakshi, or female deity, from a stupa temple site in Bharhut, in Madhya Pradesh Province in central India. It is more than seven feet tall and weighs about 500 pounds. Indian scholars say the stupa of Bharhut is one of the most important Buddhist sites in the world.
In a sales brochure for the statue that was sent by Mr. Kapoor to private buyers, Mr. Freedman wrote: “This sculpture is the most significant example of Indian sculpture known to exist outside of India. It is of pivotal importance to the understanding of the Bharhut stupa, and to the entire development of Indian art.”
Indian officials said that they hoped the relic would be repatriated early next year. It is now being held in New York.
Paul B. Bergman, Mr. Freedman’s lawyer, said his client was eager to “take concrete steps to rectify his serious mistakes.”
A version of this article appears in print on 12/06/2013, on page C2 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Guilty Plea in Case Of Indian Antiquities.
**************************
Australian PM Tony Abbott Returns Stolen Statues to India: The Prime Minister seeks improved Australian-Indian relations ahead of uranium deal.
by Lorena Muñoz-Alonso
artnetmews
September 5, 2014
"Shiva as Lord of the Dance or Nataraja." Circa 11th century, Indian bronze statue.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott will return two looted statues to India during an official visit to the country, the Guardian reports. The statues were allegedly sold to Australian galleries by an Indian dealer accused of smuggling crimes. Abbott will hand back the statues during his meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where a deal to supply Australian uranium to India is expected to be signed. The uranium is to be used to fuel India’s nuclear power grid.
The stolen statues have been a sore spot in Australian-Indian relations. The Indian government say they were taken from its territory without permission by a trafficker of cultural artifacts. Subhash Kapoor, the antiques dealer who sold the sculptures, was arrested in 2011 and extradited to India, accused of organizing a $100 million smuggling ring, the Guardian reported.
The most valuable statue, a $5.6 million bronze “dancing Shiva” was sold by Kapoor to the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in 2008. A $300,000 stone sculpture of the Hindu god Ardhanariswara, also linked to Kapoor, ended up in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. Both the Shiva Narajara, which dates back to the 11th or 12th century, and the Ardhanariswara were removed from display earlier this year amid allegations they were stolen from temples in southern India.
The pieces’ return will end an uncomfortable diplomatic battle. As late as last November, NGA’s lawyers suggested no “conclusive evidence” had emerged to demonstrate the statue was stolen or illegally exported. Kapoor, who is in prison in India, claimed the statue had been sold to him by the wife of a diplomat, according to the institution. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
But in December, Kapoor’s office manager, Aaron Freedman, pleaded guilty in the New York Supreme Court to six counts of criminal possession of stolen property. The Shiva Nataraja was among the items listed as being illegally exported from India.
The Ardhanariswara sculpture smuggled by Subhash Kapoor. Photo via: The Telegraph
“This information represents a significant and concrete development in the available information regarding the Kapoor case,” the NGA statement said. The Indian authorities made a formal request for the statues to be returned last March, to which Australia immediately agreed.
Returning the objects “is testimony to Australia’s good citizenship on such matters and the importance with which Australia views its relationship with India,” Abbott’s office said.