The remains of a
70-million-year-old dinosaur that was falsely labeled as a cheap replica
and smuggled into New York earlier this year can be returned to its
native Mongolia, the United States Attorney's Office said on Tuesday
A federal court judge in
the Eastern District of New York ruled that the skull and vertebrae of
the Alioramus dinosaur, a relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, must be
forfeited by the French fossil dealers who exported the remains.
"We are determined to
expose and halt the flow of stolen cultural property entering our
ports," Loretta Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District
of New York, said in a statement.
In January, U.S. Customs
and Border protection officials seized the dinosaur fossils, sent to
New York from France by Geofossiles Inc, which claimed that the skull
was a French-made replica, the statement said.
In a petition for the
items' release, Geofossiles later conceded that the fossils were
genuine, originating from Mongolia, and provided forged documents
claiming that the remains could legally be exported, the statement said.
The company also attached a contract to sell the skull for $250,000.
Under Mongolian law,
significant fossil discoveries cannot be permanently exported or sold to
non-Mongolians, even if privately owned.
Geofossiles could not immediately be reached for comment.
Now that the skull and
vertebrae have been forfeited, the Mongolian government, which assisted
with the forfeiture case along with the Central Museum of Mongolian
Dinosaurs, can submit a petition for the return of the fossils.
