A Family Affair: Kapoor’s Sister Charged With Hiding Looted Idols

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has charged the sister of Manhattan antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor with attempting to hide from federal authorities four stolen bronze sculptures worth $14.5 million.

Kapoor after his arrest and extradition to India

Sushma Sareen was charged on October 7 with four counts of felony possession of stolen property. According the criminal complaint, Sareen took over Kapoor’s business after his arrest in Germany in 2012 and began running it with Kapoor’s daughter Mamta Sager. Ever since, Sareen has been closely involved with the business, traveling to India, assisting with wire transfers and contacting smugglers, the complaint alleges.

Sareen was released on $10,000 bond. Her lawyer Scott E. Leemon told the New York Times that Sareen denied the charges. See our past coverage of the Kapoor case here.

Bronze Shiva Natarajah stolen from an Indian temple in 2008

The Chola-era bronzes she attempted to hide are among 14 that were stolen in February 2008 from the Varadharajah Perumi temple in Suthamally Village of Tamil Nadu, India, the complaint alleges. The idols were allegedly stolen for Kapoor by a crew hired by his accomplice Sanjeevi Ashokan. According to Indian investigators, Ashokan “used to select Chola period temples, which were in ruins, for committing theft of antique idols, as theft in such temples would not be known soon after the crime. For identifying temples to commit the crime, he used to refer to books such as South Indian Bronzes, Master pieces of Indian Sculptures and Survey Maps.” In all, 18 idols were stolen from a dilapidated temple during two days in February 2008. They were transported in a truck to Chennai, the Tamil Nadu capital, where many were provided to Ashokan, who paid Rs. 25 lakhs, or about $50,000.

Shiva Nataraja shown in Kapoor’s Art of the Past 2010 catalog

Ashokan allegedly exported the idols in a shipment mixed with modern handicrafts through the Chennai Port on March 6, 2008 to Union Link Int. Movers (HK) Inc in Hong Kong. Kapoor paid Ashokan more than 1 million rupees, or roughly US$230,000, through HSBC bank for the idols, Indian investigators allege. Shipping documents seized by U.S. federal agents appear to support that conclusion. The complaint says the shipping records show the 14 idols were illegally exported from India to Hong Kong along with otherwise legal shipments of “new Indian artistic handicrafts.”

The complaint also spells out the early stages of the Kapoor investigation and reveals that federal agents have recruited several insiders — including a member of Kapoor’s staff and a person who posed as a private collector — as informants in their investigation of Kapoor, who they have described as “one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world.”

That investigation appears to have begun in 2007, when a person described as “Informant #1” was arrested in California and pled guilty to a customs violation. The defendant began cooperating with federal investigators, who asked Informant 1 to contact Subhash Kapoor and employees of his Madison Avenue  gallery Art of the Past.

Informant 1 began asking Kapoor and his staff for “fresh” antiquities, a euphemism for objects that had recently been looted or stolen. In a 2008 visit to Kapoor’s gallery, Informant 1 was offered a stolen 12th century sculpture of the dancing Hindu got Shiva Nataraja for $3.5 million.

In September 2011, Informant 1 recorded a meeting with Kapoor in which he was offered the $3.5 million Shiva and another Shiva valued at $5 million, both of which were on display in the gallery. Kapoor said he had been holding the objects for a few years and expected them to appreciate by 10 to 15% a year. Both had been displayed in Kapoor’s catalogs and other catalogs, including the Asia Week New York 2009.

Emails obtained by federal agents show Kapoor also was shopping two other Chola bronzes: a Uma Parameshvari valued at $2.5 million and a $3.5 million Uma Parvati.

Figure of Uma Parvati shown in its original setting in an Indian temple 

Uma Parvati shown in Kapoor’s Art of the Past catalogue

In November 2011, Kapoor instructed an employee to send the four bronzes to the apartment of Selina Mohamad. After federal agents searched Kapoor’s gallery in Jan 2012, Mohamad asked that the statues to be moved. Sareen allegedly moved them to a “safe location.”

It is not clear where the bronze idols are today. Kapoor is currently being held in a Chennai jail awaiting trial.

Here is the criminal complaint against his sister:

UPDATE: Vijay Kumar’s site Poetry in Stone has posted a detailed analysis of these and other Kapoor objects. Check it out: http://poetryinstone.in/