(Bloomberg) -- In a remote village temple late one night in 2004, a gang of thieves pulled off a daring heist of some of India’s most precious cultural heritage. With little effort, they methodically emptied the site of a series of priceless bronze idols. The brazen crime was just one of many all across India, part of a sprawling effort to relieve the nation of its cultural heritage in order to feed a global art market where millions of dollars can be made.In Stealing the Gods, the first episode of a new season of Bloomberg Originals’ premier documentary series Bloomberg Investigates, we meet two men on opposite sides of the planet, citizen detectives both, who joined forces along with Indian authorities and a special unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York to bring down the mastermind behind one of the biggest art thefts in history.
India has been losing tens of thousands of pieces of ancient artwork every decade to a global black market worth at least $10 billion. In the world of antiquities hunters, the biggest hauls often involve India and other Asian nations, where unguarded temples can be easy targets. During one bust known as Operation Hidden Idol, officials found goods worth more than $100 million in the New York warehouses of Indian-American art dealer Subhash Kapoor.
In Stealing the Gods, we reveal how networks of thieves have stolen sacred sculptures and smuggled them out for sale to private collectors and some of the most revered museums in the world. Bloomberg Investigates also shows how one of the biggest thieves of all was eventually caught through the tireless efforts of just a few investigators bent on justice.
To see all episodes of Bloomberg Investigates, click here.
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