{"id":22965,"date":"2026-05-05T22:03:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/?p=22965"},"modified":"2026-05-05T22:03:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T22:03:45","slug":"new-york-officials-return-more-than-650-antiquities-valued-at-14m-to-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2026\/05\/05\/new-york-officials-return-more-than-650-antiquities-valued-at-14m-to-india\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Officials Return More Than 650 Antiquities Valued at $14m to India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NEW YORK, NEW YORK, April 30, 2026 (The Guardian): Hundreds of antiquities valued at $14 million have been returned to India by New York authorities, including some connected to the alleged art smuggler Subhash Kapoor, in a move that is likely to raise the pressure on others to make similar gestures. The return of 657 antiquities, including both Hindu and Buddhist items, was announced by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg Jr, on Tuesday, and came as New York City\u2019s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, waded into the historically contentious ownership of the 105.6 carat Koh-i-noor diamond in possession of the British royal family. A spokesperson for the prosecutor\u2019s office said the ceremony had been scheduled months earlier and was not connected to the king&#8217;s recent royal visit. The return of Indian antiquities recovered from several ongoing investigations was held at a ceremony at the consulate general of India. \u201cThe scale of the trafficking networks that targeted cultural heritage in India is massive, as demonstrated by the return of more than 600 pieces today,\u201d Bragg said in a statement read at the ceremony. \u201cThere is unfortunately more work to be done to return stolen artifacts back to India, and I thank our team for their persistent efforts.\u201d<br><br>The pieces include a bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara, a Buddhist Deity, seated on an inscribed double-lotus base over a lion-flanked throne. It was stolen and smuggled into the US by 1982, ultimately ending up in a private collection in New York by 2014. Others include a red sandstone figure of a Buddha standing with his right hand raised in a gesture of protection, which was looted from northern India and smuggled into the US by Kapoor, who is under indictment on smuggling charges. A sandstone figure of a dancing Ganesha looted by an indicted co-conspirator, Ranjeet \u201cShantoo\u201d Kanwar, was also returned.<br><br>More at source,<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/30\/new-york-return-antiquities-india\n\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/apr\/30\/new-york-return-antiquities-india<br><\/a><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK, NEW YORK, April 30, 2026 (The Guardian): Hundreds of antiquities valued at $14 million have been returned to,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22965"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22980,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22965\/revisions\/22980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}