All thanks to diligent MLRO reports, cultural artefacts are returned to India.

All thanks to diligent MLROs and compliance officers, the United States officially returned hundreds of cultural artefacts smuggled out of India at a symbolic handover ceremony during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Delaware with President Joe Biden.

The U.S. has now returned 578 cultural artifacts to India — the highest number of items returned to India from any one country. Some of the pieces being repatriated were identified in ICIJ’s Hidden Treasures project, which exposed the prevalence of looted and smuggled artifacts in renowned institutions like the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

KEY FACTS

• A joint investigation by ICIJ and The Indian Express revealed a treasure trove of relics in the Met’s collection that could be traced to antiquities trafficker Subhash Kapoor.
• In 2022, the U.S. returned 307 stolen artifacts to India — more than three-quarters of which were linked to Kapoor, who is now serving a 10-year jail sentence in India for his involvement in smuggling.
• In July, the U.S. and India signed a cultural property agreement, a commitment to preventing the illegal trade of antiquities and simplifying the process for their return.

THE STORY STARTS IN 2017…

• In 2017, Standard Chartered suspicious activity report was reviewed by ICIJ as part of the FinCEN files, an investigation based on more than 2,100 leaked suspicious activity reports filed by banks with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
• Pantheon Worldwide Limited, a shadowy shell company, was implicated in facilitating the illegal transfer of artwork alongside Subhash Kapoor and Nancy Wiener
• Kapoor, a former Manhattan gallery owner, and Wiener, a prominent art dealer, were involved in smuggling and selling looted antiquities from various countries, including India, Afghanistan, and Cambodia
• These activities involved fabricating documents to disguise the origins of the stolen artefacts

THE ICIJ REPORTS HIGHLIGHTED

• The Standard Chartered report summarises 413 financial transactions over seven years, totalling $27.8 million.
• Seventeen people and companies with links to the United States, Hong Kong and India are named in the report, including several of those named in criminal complaints.
• Pantheon worked with Kapoor and Wiener to facilitate the “illegal transfer of artwork,” according to the report.
• A Nepalese-painted tapestry known as a thangka, an Indian painting and a 15-inch seated bodhisattva moved through Pantheon, the report said.
• The report said that Wiener received more than $1.6 million from Pantheon and another company.
• According to the report, Pantheon paid more than $3.6 million to Nayef Homsi, a Brooklyn art dealer.
• Homsi was charged in 2015 and subsequently convicted in New York of importing a stolen 13th-century Nepalese gilt bronze statue of a Buddhist deity.
• The statue was valued at $484,500, according to a New York State indictment.
• Standard Chartered’s suspicious activity report provides a street address for two Pantheon offices in a building in Hong Kong’s central district. Yet the Hong Kong corporate registry contains no trace of the company.
• The report included a secondary address for Pantheon in the United Kingdom. But this address belongs to a U.K.-based Pantheon Worldwide Limited, registered in 2016, four years after Kapoor was jailed in India.
• The accounting firm that established the company said that the U.K.-based Pantheon had never dealt in antiquities — or anything else. “To the best of my knowledge, the company never traded at all,” a spokesperson for PRB Accountants told ICIJ.

2024 - US RETURNS 297 ANTIQUITIES ILLEGALLY SMUGGLED OUT OF INDIA

• The U.S. has now returned 578 cultural artifacts to India — the highest number of items returned to India from any one country.
• The symbolic handover of items from President Joe Biden to Indian leader Narendra Modi included some relics identified as part of ICIJ’s Hidden Treasure investigation.
• The 297 relics, dated between 2000 B.C.E. and 1900 C.E., included mostly terracotta works from eastern India and sculptures and vases made from stone, copper, and other materials.

2024 - MODI SAID IN A STATEMENT, THANKING BIDEN FOR HIS SUPPORT.

• “These objects are not just part of India’s historical material culture but formed the inner core of its civilisation and consciousness.”

2024 - AMERICAN AMBASSADOR TO INDIA, ERIC GARCETTI, SAID IN A STATEMENT ABOUT THE AGREEMENT.

• “First and foremost, it’s about justice — returning to India and Indians, what is rightfully theirs,”.
• “Secondly, it’s about connecting India with the world. Every American and every global citizen deserves to know, see, and experience the culture we celebrate today.”

Source

• https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/us-returns-297-antiquities-illegally-smuggled-out-of-india/?utm_content=buffer4f299&utm_medium=social&utm_source=LinkedIn+&utm_campaign=Buffer+-+LInkedIn
• https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/+
• https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/mystery-company-ties-accused-temple-raiders-to-art-world-elite/
• Mystery company ties accused temple raiders to the art world elite. https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/mystery-company-ties-accused-temple-raiders-to-art-world-elite/.
• The Manhattan District Attorney Has Returned 27 Looted Antiquities .... https://news.artnet.com/art-world/3-8m-looted-antiquities-to-cambodia-1979478.
• https://www.icij.org/investigations/hidden-treasures/more-than-1000-artifacts-in-metropolitan-museum-of-art-catalog-linked-to-alleged-looting-and-trafficking-figures/