A British art restorer has been extradited from London to New York to face charges for their role in a global trafficking scheme of Asian antiquities worth USD 143 million that lasted decades.

The art restorer has been named by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in the United States as Neil Perry Smith.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, Jr. announced that Smith, 58, had been indicted after his extradition from London in the UK on Tuesday (20th July).

The suspect has been indicted for their alleged role in a “global antiquities trafficking ring that looted and smuggled culturally significant relics from Asia and sold them in New York’s art market”, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said in a statement.

The suspect has been charged with possessing and restoring 22 stolen pieces of art believed to be worth more than USD 32 million.

Smith is accused of concealing the pieces’ “illicit origin” so that the “alleged conspiracy ringleader Subhash Kapoor could then sell them at his now-closed Madison Avenue-based gallery, Art of the Past.”

Among the charges that Smith faces, there are multiple counts of “criminal possession of stolen property, grand larceny, conspiracy, and scheme to defraud.”

Smith and Kapoor face charges along with six other co-defendants of the authorities investigated the alleged trafficking ring three years.

The Manhattan D.A.’s Office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit worked with colleagues at the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) to investigate the groups activities.

Works of art from “Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal, Indonesia, Myanmar, and other nations” are believed to have been sold illegally in New York.

The District Attorney’s statement also said: “From 2011 to 2020, the D.A.’s Office and HSI recovered more than 2,500 items trafficked by Kapoor and his network over a three-decade span. The total value of the pieces recovered exceeds USD 143 million.”

District Attorney Vance said in the statement: “Without restorers to disguise stolen relics, there would be no laundered items for antiquities traffickers to sell”, adding: “The arraignment of Neil Perry Smith serves as a reminder that behind every antiquities trafficking ring preying upon cultural heritage for profit, there is someone reassembling and restoring these looted pieces to lend the criminal enterprise a veneer of legitimacy.

“Thanks to our Antiquities Trafficking Unit and our partners at HSI, Smith will now face justice on U.S. soil, and we look forward to seeing alleged ringleader Subhash Kapoor inside of a Manhattan courtroom in the near future. In the meantime, we will continue to pursue these cases vigorously and return these stolen items to the countries from which they were stolen.”

The District Attorney’s statement also explains how the scheme worked: “Smith restored the bases of numerous bronze relics stolen from temples in India after smugglers intentionally broke them to facilitate illicit removal from the site and across international borders.

“After restoration, Kapoor housed the antiquities at his store or at one of his numerous storage units until it was sold or consigned.”

It also said: “Smith’s restorations helped Kapoor mislead potential buyers about the origin and condition of looted antiquities so that Kapoor could, in turn, capitalize on this veneer of legitimacy by dramatically increasing values.

“In 2009, Kapoor purchased an 11th-Century ceramic Khmer sculpture of a Buddha protected by a serpent (or “naga”) that was broken into at least 50 pieces.

“Kapoor paid Smith GBP 7,925 “[t]o remove three types of restoration, disassemble, clean joins, make up missing sections, reassemble, tone-in and mount” the 40-inch statue from Cambodia.

“After Smith completed the restoration, Kapoor created a false trail of provenance for the Naga Buddha, which he claimed was from Thailand, and later attempted to sell it for USD 1.2 million – an astronomical leap from the USD 5,504.45 value Kapoor declared on shipping documents for the item’s return transfer to the U.S. in June 2010.”