Stolen artifacts returned to Egypt, Pakistan from Manhattan

Roni Jacobson, New York Daily News on Jun 2, 2025

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NEW YORK — Fifty priceless artifacts looted from Egypt and Pakistan — and trafficked through Manhattan by two notorious antiquities dealers — have been returned to their home countries, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has announced.

The repatriation of the artifacts, some of which are as old as 3300 BCE, is the result of two separate investigations into criminal trafficking networks linked to the convicted traffickers Robin Symes and Subhash Kapoor, respectively.

Symes, who died in 2023, was one of the most notorious antiquities smugglers in the last century. Kapoor, 76, was convicted of running a $100 million international smuggling racket, including stealing 19 ancient idols and illegally transferring them to his art gallery in Manhattan.

In total, 11 artifacts were returned to Egypt and 39 to Pakistan.

Among the artifacts returned were a “mummy mask of a youth,” a funerary mask dating to the Roman rule of Egypt, around 100-300 CE, one of the “Fayum Portraits” famous for their realism and modernity.

A terracotta vessel with painted red, black and blue fish — dating to between 3300 and 1300 BCE — seized from a Manhattan dealer in 2025 has been returned to Pakistan.

Since its creation in 2017, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit has convicted 17 individuals of cultural property-related crimes, recovered more than 6,000 antiquities valued at more than $470 million, and has returned more than 5,500 of them so far to 30 countries, according to the DA’s office.