The United States has returned 657 stolen antiquities to India, collectively valued at nearly $14 million, as part of a broader initiative to combat the trafficking of cultural property. This significant handover was announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who emphasized the extensive scale of illicit trade targeting India's cultural heritage. Among the returned items is a bronze statue of Avalokiteshvara, valued at around $2 million, originally discovered near the Lakshmana Temple in 1939. Another notable artefact is a sandstone sculpture of a dancing Ganesha, looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in 2000. Investigations have linked these thefts to international trafficking networks, particularly those led by Subhash Kapoor, a former New York-based art dealer. Kapoor's network has been implicated in sourcing artefacts from various locations in India, often through local agents. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, in collaboration with US Homeland Security Investigations, has been pursuing these cases for over a decade, recovering over 6,200 cultural items worth more than $485 million and returning over 5,900 objects to 36 countries.