NEW YORK, PTI, 27 July 2012: The US authorities have issued an arrest warrant against an Indian antique dealer, who is currently in prison in Tamil Nadu, after they seized statues and artifacts stolen from Indian temples and valued at over USD 20 million from his Manhattan store. US immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) division of the homeland security department executed a search warrant at the storage unit owned by Subhash Chandra Kapoor, 63. Kapoor was arrested in Germany in October last year following an Interpol red corner notice for smuggling antique idols allegedly stolen from temples in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He was extradited to India two weeks ago and is currently in custody in Chennai. Investigators said Kapoor, who has done business in the city since 1976, had been importing into the US stolen Indian antiquities for several years.
Kapoor owns a gallery known as Art of the Past and is understood to have sold Indian art to prestigious museums like New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. ICE said some of the artifacts previously seized in the probe had been displayed in “major international museums worldwide,” and that other pieces that match those listed as stolen “are still openly on display in some museums. “The statues and sculptures recovered today are worth millions in the antiquities business, but they are priceless to the nations that they were robbed from,” special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New York James Hayes said. “These seizures send a clear message to looters, smugglers and dealers to think twice before trying to profit from illicit cultural property in the United States