"Kapoor was extradited to India in 2011 to stand trial on charges of organizing a $100 million smuggling ring. For decades, he ran the New York gallery Art of the Past.
This is definitely one of the biggest [art smuggling rings], I think, that weve seen in the world, James Dinkins of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) told CNBC in 2014. New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art told CNBC at that time that was researching the histories of numerous gifts from Kapoor.
Kapoor also sold Indian antiquities to the National Gallery of Australia, several of which were repatriated last year (see Australian PM Tony Abbott Returns Stolen Statues to India and Australia Returns Stolen Second-Century Buddha). That haul included a $5.6 million sculpture of the god Shiva.
Also last year, Ohios Toledo Museum of Art restored a nearly 1,000-year-old bronze statue of the Hindu god Ganesh to India (see Toledo Museum of Art Returns Stolen Statue to India). That museum did not wait for the results of the governments investigation, but rather followed its own policy of returning objects for which it cannot provide clear title.
The current repatriation results from an investigation known as Operation Hidden Idol, and started when New York City agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which oversees HSI, identified a 2,000-year-old terra cotta rattle in the Honolulu Museums holdings as looted property."
