The Republic of India has stepped up its scrutiny of New York’s international antiquities trade, a senior consulate official said during an interview this week.

Over the past three years, the consulate has forged a closer relationship with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and several investigations into smuggled antiquities are under way in the city, the deputy consul general of the consulate, A.R. Ghanashyam, said.

“There was a time when people in villages would not even contemplate that things like this, objects in temples, could sell in a New York market,” Mr. Ghanashyam said. “Over the last years, with increased tourist traffic and globalization, pieces are disappearing.”

A senior special agent at ICE, James McAndrew, said India is part of a group of countries, including Thailand and Peru, that is scrutinizing the antiquities trade to a higher degree than in the past. With the filing of high-profile cultural property claims recently involving Italy, Greece, and Egypt — countries that have long been proactive about recovering antiquities they say were looted — other countries are starting to test the waters for claims of their own, he said.

“The antiquities trade has turned a corner,” Mr. McAndrew said. “In my mind, I see a domino effect. Sooner or later, I see other countries trying to model Italy’s success at recovering artifacts.”

On April 17, 2006, a stolen Vishnu statue worth about $30,000 was turned over by ICE to the Indian government. The 250-pound sandstone statue was taken from a temple in the city of Mandsaur in the Madhya Pradesh state of India sometime in 2000, according to published reports. Mr. McAndrew was able to trace the statue to a New York gallery owner, Namkha Dorjee, who voluntarily surrendered the object to the government. It was being stored in a warehouse in Queens.

No one was charged with a crime because the original smuggler was murdered in Afghanistan during the course of the investigation. He was allegedly involved with another smuggling operation there, Mr. McAndrew said.

Since that investigation began in 2003, Indian officials have increasingly issued alerts about objects that may be heading to New York, which is one of the largest markets for antiquities collectors in the world, Mr. McAndrew said.

Mr. Ghanshyam said discussions were ongoing in India about how to better secure artifacts in remote villages, some of which had never been documented. It is virtually impossible to legally export an ancient object from India because permits to do so are never issued, he said.

Customs officials there are starting to use new technology to monitor outgoing shipments, and legislators are considering increasing the penalties for smuggling antiquities by amending the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act of 1972, Mr. Ghanashyam said.

Two New York gallery owners interviewed yesterday said they believe antiquities should be better protected in their home countries, but that the laws shouldn’t restrict trade of antiquities altogether.

“There is a lot of good to this,” the co-owner of E&J Frankel, Joel Frankel, said. “But, I’m still one of the old believers that sometimes when you make rules and laws too tight, nothing gets out, and the rest of the world doesn’t have any idea of what material that country produces.”

Mr. Frankel said he regularly turns away people who come to his gallery with objects that have unreliable histories, but that some collectors are willing to turn a blind eye.

Another gallery owner, Joseph Gerena, said: “So far the thrust of it has been overdramatized to demonize the collectors, museums, and dealers.” The world is in danger of the “balkanization of culture” if pieces are horded in the countries from which they originate, he said.

Advocates of restricting the antiquities trade say the private market for ancient artifacts drives improper excavation around the world. The works can be damaged or slip from smuggler to collector without having ever been seen by an archaeologist or art historian, they say.