Jailed art dealer Subhash Kapoor charged in US with looting artifacts

Jailed art dealer Subhash Kapoor has been charged by prosecutors in Manhattan with stealing and possessing millions of dollars worth of artifacts, with officials at the Metropolitan Museum of Art now looking into whether the looted antiquities sold by Kapoor have ended up in its collection.

Kapoor was arrested by Interpol in Germany in 2011 and is in jail in India.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance's office filed a criminal complaint last month against Kapoor and several others. The complaint charges Kapoor with 86 counts of criminal possession of stolen property, grand larceny and scheme to defraud for possessing artifacts worth millions of dollars.

A report in The New York Times said officials of the Indian government and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are discussing whether several of the prized antiquities that the museum began acquiring three decades ago were the result of looting by Kapoor.

The report said that since 1990, the museum acquired about 15 antiquities that passed through Kapoor's hands during a period in which "his smuggling ring was active and he routinely sold or donated rare and costly artifacts to at least a dozen American museums."
"It is a good initiative," D M Dimri, a spokesman for the Archaeological Survey of India, said of the Met's effort. "We hope other museums will follow suit too and verify the source of their acquisitions in case they have our stolen antiquities."