New Delhi: The United States will return more than 1, 440 antiquities, worth about USD10 million, this year, to India, the media reported this week.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg, Jr., in a statement on Wednesday, said the pieces were recovered under several ongoing investigations into criminal trafficking networks, including those of alleged antiquities trafficker Subhash Kapoor and convicted trafficker Nancy Wiener.
We will continue to investigate the many trafficking networks that have targeted Indian cultural heritage, he said.
The recently returned pieces included a sandstone sculpture depicting a Celestial Dancer, looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh, and the Tanesar Mother Goddess carved from the village of Tanesara–Mahadeva in Rajasthan.
During Bragg’s tenure, the District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit recovered over 2,100 antiquities stolen from more than 30 countries and valued at USD 230 million.
It said about 1,000 antiquities, including more than 600 antiquities looted from India and recovered earlier this year, are to be repatriated in the coming months.