Displaying items by tag: subhash kapoor

The Honolulu Museum of Art and the Honolulu Academy of Arts (HAA) are suing art collector Joel Alexander Greene for $880,000 for previous donations.

The museum fears that Greene's works may have come from a smuggling ring—an entanglement which the institution especially wants to avoid after seven of its artifacts were seized by Homeland Security Investigations in connection to the ongoing case against disgraced Indian art dealer Subhash Kapoor.

An international investigation into antiquities looted from India and smuggled into the United States has taken authorities to the Honolulu Museum of Art.

The museum on Wednesday handed over seven rare artifacts that it acquired without museum officials realizing they were ill-gotten items. Agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will take the items back to New York and, from there, eventually return them to the government of India.

U.S. customs agents say the items were taken from religious temples and ancient Buddhist sites, and then allegedly smuggled to the United States by an art dealer. The dealer, Subhash Kapoor, was arrested in 2011 and is awaiting trial in India. Officials say Kapoor created false provenances for the illicit antiquities.

The Toledo Museum of Art announced that it will return a nearly 1,000-year-old bronze sculpture of the Hindu god Ganesha to the Government of India.

The Ganesha was purchased in 2006 from art dealer Subhash Kapoor, who is currently awaiting trial in India on charges of illegal exportation, criminal conspiracy and forgery.

Research conducted by the Museum, with the assistance and cooperation of the Indian Consulate General, Dnyaneshwar M. Mulay, and the Ambassador of India, Dr. S. Jaishankar, and their respective representatives, led Museum Director Brian Kennedy to recommend the return to the Museum’s Art Committee. That committee voted on Aug. 21 to deaccession the Ganesha from the collection and facilitate its return.

On Tuesday, March 4, agents from Homeland Security Investigations raided a Long Island City storage locker belonging to a family member of Subhash Kapoor, a former New York gallery owner accused of smuggling Indian antiquities into the United States. Authorities seized hundreds of Southeast Asian and Indian objects that they valued at $8 million.

Kapoor, a once-established antiquities dealer, ran the Art of the Past Gallery on Madison Avenue from 1974 until his arrest overseas in 2011. In October, Kapoor’s sister was charged with hiding four bronze statues of Hindu deities valued at $14.5 million and in December, Kapoor’s office manager pleaded guilty to six counts of criminal possession of stolen property valued at $35 million.

Kapoor is accused of hiring looters to steal rare bronze and stone sculptures of Hindu deities. U.S. officials claim that he would then illegally import the objects, create false provenances for them, and sell them to collectors and museums. Kapoor is currently awaiting trial in India.    

Subhash Kapoor, a once-established antiquities dealer in New York, has been the source of much controversy over the past few months. In July, authorities asked American museums to search their collections for any works obtained from Kapoor after it was revealed that he was in possession of looted antiquities. Allegedly, Kapoor has trafficked more than $100 million worth of stolen Indian artifacts and on December 5, authorities added to his list of thefts after a raid at the Port of Newark.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with Homeland Security Investigations teamed up with Indian authorities and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and seized more than $5 million worth of artifacts including a 14^th century statue of the Hindu deity, Parvati, and four bronze figures from India’s Tamil Nadu region. It is believed that all of the works were stolen from Indian temples. The The Parvati statue has been in the possession of six different dealers and is marred by a litany of false provenances despite being listed on an Interpol database of stolen artworks.

Kapoor ran the Art of the Past Gallery on Madison Avenue from 1974 until his arrest last July. He has donated and sold antiquities to many distinguished institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kapoor is currently facing criminal charges in India.