Word: ghias
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Once in a great while, though, a big fish does get caught. For years Indian police suspected unassuming handicrafts trader Vaman Narayan Ghia of leading a massive antiques-smuggling network that robbed hundreds of temples and palaces of their finest treasures. But the graying 55-year-old had always been far too careful to allow any cracks in his operation, police say. Each member of his art-smuggling chain knew only the member directly above, making it nearly impossible to connect the thieves who were occasionally caught with stolen art to the mastermind at the top. But on June...
...Inside Ghia's home, the cops say they found hundreds of photographs of looted 9th to 11th century statues, a long list of private collectors' phone numbers and 68 auction-house catalogs featuring some of the same artifacts. Based on a detailed confession from Ghia, police claim he spent 30 years smuggling an estimated 50,000 idols, paintings and statues stolen from protected monuments around the country. On Sept. 2, charges were filed against Ghia and 21 alleged looters believed to be part of his smuggling ring. Police retrieved stolen goods from some of them, including a dismantled Mughal pavilion...
...case, according to police, Ghia confessed to sending the owners of a Manhattan gallery some photographs of a temple ceiling adorned with 16 statues. The gallery owners agreed on a price, police say, and Ghia then arranged for the statues to be stolen and sent to the buyers in New York City. In his lengthy written confession, Ghia stated that other private collectors and dealers came to India and toured deserted temples to pick out precisely what they wanted stolen for them...
Some items that Ghia allegedly stole ended up on the block in Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses, say Indian authorities. Relics listed in Christie's catalogs that police say were taken by Ghia included a 2.6-ft. sandstone frieze with an estimated value of $200,000 to $300,000 and a 2.7-ft. statue of the Hindu god Shiva. A Jain statue that was reported stolen on Oct. 7, 1999, turned up as Lot 135 in a Sotheby's September 2000 catalog...
...helping them with their inquiries," said a spokesperson for Christie's London office. "As the investigation is ongoing, we do not have any further information to release at this time." Diana Phillips, senior vice president at Sotheby's, says, "We have not knowingly sold any items consigned by Mr. Ghia or companies affiliated with him for the past several years." Sotheby's, says Phillips, does not offer for sale "any object that we know or suspect is stolen, smuggled or looted...