The Idol Thief

by Kumar

Stolen art that can be traced to him is being discovered on every continent, in important museums and collections.

I’d just like to reiterate one point that Hayes made. Art crime is not a ‘soft’ matter. It’s not something that should be relegated to the ‘features’ or ‘arts’ pages of newspapers. It’s in the same league as drugs, arms and gold smuggling. Art crime is crime. Art smuggling is smuggling. And make no mistake, according to American law enforcement, Subhash Kapoor was ‘one of the most prolific commodities smugglers in the world’.

When asked by the New York Times if the piece was smuggled, Simon replied, ‘Hell yes, it was smuggled. I spent between $15 and $16 million in the last two years on Asian art, and most of it was smuggled.’