Fourteen years after Subash Chandra Kapoor was brought to India from a German prison, the international antiquities dealer and notorious idol smuggler is preparing to make the journey back. His extraordinary trail has stretched from forgotten temples in Tamil Nadu to Manhattan galleries, international museums, police investigations and millions of dollars in antiquities.
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the Union government to take custody of Kapoor from Tiruchi Central Prison and proceed in accordance with the law to return him to Germany. The legal twist is striking: the very extradition treaty that allowed India to bring Kapoor here in 2012 has now restricted the country’s ability to keep him in custody.
Kapoor, a US citizen and once a prominent Manhattan antiquities dealer, was convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for the burglary and illegal export of 19 antique idols worth more than Rs 94 crore from the Varadaraja Perumal temple at Suthamalli in Tamil Nadu’s Ariyalur district.
Since the period he had already spent in custody was counted towards his sentence, Kapoor completed his term in 2023. Tamil Nadu, however, sought to prosecute him in connection with several other idol-theft cases. Under the principle of speciality governing extradition, Germany’s consent was required before he could face prosecution for those other offences. Germany refused permission in four cases, while requests concerning others remained pending.
The High Court has now made clear that however serious the allegations may be, their gravity alone cannot provide legal authority to keep a person imprisoned when the applicable extradition conditions do not permit it.
For decades, antiquities appeared to move through Kapoor’s world with remarkable ease. An ancient bronze could disappear from a village temple, acquire documentation, cross international borders, develop a seemingly legitimate provenance and eventually find its way into a museum or private collection thousands of kilometres from the place where devotees had once worshipped before it.
Kapoor’s Art of the Past gallery in Manhattan existed in a world far removed from the temples at the centre of Tamil Nadu’s investigations. He became a respected antiquities dealer and donor, selling works to museums and collectors. His business revolved around art, history and provenance — although investigators would later allege that provenance itself could sometimes be fabricated.
His arrest in Germany in 2011 led to one of the most unusual episodes in the investigation. Three days after Kapoor was detained on October 30, 2011, he managed to send a handwritten instruction to Art of the Past. It read: “Give back four items to Selina (Mohammad), Bronze Dancers, which are in the 4 closets.”
A second note followed several days later: “4 dancers bronze in 4 closets = 2 pairs nataraj and conserts (consorts).”
Investigators believed the notes referred to four highly valuable Chola bronzes. Kapoor’s aide, Aaron Freeman, allegedly moved the sculptures to the apartment of Kapoor’s girlfriend and fellow art dealer Selina Mohammad before US investigators raided Art of the Past and related storage facilities in January 2012. The four sculptures subsequently vanished.
The Man from Delhi
Kapoor’s father, Parshotam Ram, was an art dealer who operated Kangra Arts and Crafts in New Delhi before the family moved abroad in the 1970s. Kapoor later followed the family trade and established Nimbus Import and Export, eventually becoming a significant figure in the international antiquities market.
By 2007, US investigators had begun taking an interest in his activities. A container arriving in New York from India contained more than 140 antiquities and was reportedly destined for Kapoor. He abandoned the shipment after apparently discovering that authorities were monitoring it.
When the FBI investigated why anyone would walk away from a container filled with valuable antiquities, its trail led back to Kapoor. Investigators placed a mole inside his office and began recording conversations, while emails and photographs gradually added to the case against him.
Another important source of information was his then-girlfriend, Paramaspry Punusamy. Kapoor’s former partner and a Singapore-based art collector, she had fallen out with him over five sculptures. After losing a legal dispute concerning the works, she reportedly began providing authorities with information about his operations.
Before Kapoor travelled to Germany in 2011, Punusamy supplied investigators with a recent photograph of him, helping authorities identify and locate him.
The international antiquities network was therefore being pursued from several directions — by the FBI, Tamil Nadu police, a former employee who became an approver and an estranged former partner. The combination was unusual, but the allegations surrounding the network were far more serious than the circumstances of the investigation might suggest.
Tamil Nadu investigators reconstructed an alleged system in which poorly protected temples were targeted by thieves, middlemen acquired idols, exporters mixed ancient bronzes with newly manufactured replicas, certificates described consignments as handicrafts, and sculptures were routed through intermediary countries before eventually reaching prominent international collections.
Authorities later began retracing those journeys in the opposite direction.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art eventually agreed to return 15 sculptures that had been sold by Kapoor after determining that they had been illegally removed from India. Other works associated with him were returned from countries including Australia, Singapore and Germany. Tamil Nadu investigators, however, say that numerous antiquities linked to Kapoor remain abroad or have yet to be traced.
India’s extradition of Kapoor came with a condition: he could be prosecuted for the offences for which Germany surrendered him, while prosecution for other offences committed before his extradition required Germany’s consent.
Fourteen years later, that condition has proved decisive.
The High Court has ruled that even the seriousness of allegations involving priceless cultural heritage cannot override the consent requirements established under an extradition treaty.
Kapoor, now 77, is therefore expected to leave Tiruchi Central Prison and return to Germany — the country from which he was brought to India to face trial.
The fate of the idols, however, is considerably less certain. Some have been repatriated. Others remain overseas awaiting their return. Many are still missing.
And perhaps that is the most striking final chapter of the Kapoor saga: the dealer could be tracked down, arrested, extradited, convicted, imprisoned and now extradited again. The gods he allegedly trafficked have proved far more difficult to bring home.
