Kapoor
Kapoor was convicted i
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office indicted him in 2020 and have requested his extradition from India
New York
New York returned 192 antiquities to Islamabad valued at almost $3.4 million,
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
Some 187 of the artifacts were seized in relation to the investigation of Kapoor, Bragg added.
The returned items include a Gandhara statue depicting Maitreya,
the enlightened Buddha, and Mehrgarh figures dating to around
Kapoor sold the smuggled items at his Madison Avenue-based gallery Art of the Past.
American citizen
has returned a relic to Pakistan as part of a repatriation of 19 antiquities to four countries, the Guardian reported on Friday.
The report said that John Gomperts took the decision after reading news in the Guardian about the return of stolen antiquities
and realized that the items he had inherited from his grandmother were
The report added that he wanted to do the “right thing legally and ethically” by returning the items to Pakistan, Italy, Greece, and Cyprus respectively. He returned the items after his two siblings agreed to the move.
The report said that one item belonged to Pakistan, two to Cyprus, four to Italy, and 12 to Greece.
“It seemed like the right thing to do … I read stories on repatriation and I thought: we have these pieces that are 2,500 years old from other countries;
we should explore whether we can give them back,” the Guardian quoted him as
a former senior field archaeologist at the University of Cambridge and a specialist in antiquities and trafficking networks, for help.
“He reached out to me, which is a first for an owner of unprovenanced antiquities, asking for advice to do the right thing,” the report quoted the professor as saying.
It added that he advised Gomperts to approach the respective embassies of the countries and hand over the items to them.
“The countries showed their appreciation, with notes of thanks to Gomperts and Tsirogiannis,” the report stated.
including the most notable $1.1 million Buddhapadha, which now fills the central space at the Islamabad Museum.