Dino smuggling plea after skeleton found in closet

Dinosaur fossils seized by customs agents as part of a smuggling investigation. Photo courtesy of ICE.

Dinosaur fossils seized by customs agents as part of a smuggling investigation. Photo courtesy of ICE.

Dinosaur fossils seized by customs agents as part of a smuggling investigation. Photo courtesy of ICE.

A Wyoming fossil dealer has pleaded to dinosaur smuggling charges after Customs agents found a skeleton in his closet. Well, not a complete skeleton. Just the skull of a T-Bataar that had been sneaked out of Mongolia. And, technically, it wasn’t his closet. It was rented by the store’s director, but the dealer was the landlord.

The skull had been a centerpiece at Wyoming store until news broke of an earlier T-Bataar smuggling case out of New York. Then it was closet time.

Agents found a collection of other fossils, including another Bataar skull hiding in a crawlspace at the dealer’s home, authorities said.

Here is what Immigration and Customs Enforcement said about the case:

Wyoming fossil retailer pleads guilty to smuggling dinosaur and other fossils into the US

CHEYENNE, Wyo. —A Wyoming fossil retailer pleaded guilty Thursday to an Information charging conspiracy to smuggle dinosaur and other fossilized bones into the United States from China and Mongolia.

This guilty plea was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming. This investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, with assistance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

John Richard Rolater, 69, pleaded guilty to the charge and also agreed to surrender any and all contraband vertebrate fossils he has, which include the following fossils from China: a saber-toothed cat skull, a Feilongus fossil, an Anchiornis Huxleyi fossil and a Darwinopterus fossil.

As part of the plea agreement, Rolater also agreed to pay a $25,000 fine, and to two years of supervised probation. A formal sentencing date has not yet been set.

Rolater owns and operates two “By Nature Gallery” retail stores in Jackson, Wyo., and Beaver Creek, Colo.

This investigation began in June 2012 following a hot-line tip which was forwarded to HSI special agents in Casper, Wyo. The tipster reported that a Tyrannosaurus Bataar fossilized skull being sold by Rolater in his Jackson, Wyo., store was originally from Mongolia. However, immediately after the HSI seizure of a separate Bataar skull was publicized in New York, the Bataar skull displayed in Rolater’s Jackson, Wyo., store was removed. HSI special agents obtained a search warrant and discovered the skull June 22, 2012 hidden in a closet of the rented residence of the store’s director, which was owned by Rolater.

HSI special agents executed another search warrant at Rolater’s Eagle, Colo., residence Aug. 1, 2012. They discovered and seized the following items: a fossilized Gallimimus foot, six computers, two electronic storage devices, a box of business documents from Rolater, and a fossilized juvenile Bataar skull, which was hidden in the crawl space of Rolater’s house.

Both China and Mongolia have extensive cultural patrimony laws that specifically protect prehistoric fossils.

During this investigation, HSI seized the following smuggled fossils, which will ultimately be repatriated back to their country of origin:

Micro-Raptor (4), total value $173,000
Bataar Skull (3) $1,875,000
Dinosaur Eggs (10) $5,075
Bataar lower leg (1) $75,000
Keichosaurus (15) $3,990
Gallimimus foot (1) $18,750
Sinovenator (2) $70,000
Protoceratops (1) $100,000
Anchiormis (1) $30,000
Gallimimus skeleton (1) $100,000

Dino repatriated

ICE and Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office return Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton to Mongolia

May 6, 2013

NEW YORK – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned a Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton, looted from the Gobi Desert and illegally smuggled into the United States, to the government of Mongolia Monday during a repatriation ceremony at a Manhattan hotel. The Bataar was seized in New York by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations special agents after it sold at a Manhattan auction for $1.05 million.

The return of this cultural property to Mongolia is the culmination of an investigation led by HSI New York and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The repatriation ceremony was conducted by ICE Director John Morton; U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara; Chief of Office of the President of Mongolia Tsagaan Puntsag and Mongolian Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism Oyungerel Tsedevdamba.

The nearly complete Bataar skeleton, together with fossils of several other dinosaurs discovered by HSI, was illegally poached and smuggled out of Mongolia between 2005 and 2012.

The Tyrannosaurus Bataar was originally discovered and named Tarbosaurus Bataar by Russian paleontologist Evgeny Aleksandrovich Maleev in 1953. It was a carnivorous dinosaur, native to Mongolia, which lived during the late Cretaceous period, approximately 70 million years ago. Bataar fossils have very specific coloration. They were first discovered in 1946, during a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi Desert in the Mongolian Ömnögovi Province.

For almost a century, Mongolian law has firmly established that all paleontological findings are government property and part of the nation’s rich cultural heritage. Since 1924, the Mongolian government has prohibited personal ownership and criminalized the export of items of cultural significance, such as dinosaur remains.

On May 19, HSI special agents in New York received information from the U.S. Department of State that a Bataar skeleton from Mongolia was scheduled to be auctioned in New York May 20. The President of Mongolia asked for assistance in preventing the sale of the skeleton. He hired a private attorney in Texas, who obtained a temporary restraining order from the Dallas County District Court to prevent the sale of the skeleton. On May 20, Texas-based Heritage Auctions Inc., disregarded the state court order and went forward with the sale of the Bataar skeleton. It sold for $1.05 million. The sale, however, was contingent upon the outcome of any court proceedings instituted on behalf of the Mongolian government.

According to court documents filed in Manhattan federal court, on March 27, 2010, the Bataar skeleton was imported into the United States from Great Britain. The import documents contained several inaccuracies. First, the country of origin of the Bataar skeleton was erroneously listed as Great Britain, but according to several paleontologists, Tyrannosaurus Bataars have only been recovered in Mongolia. In addition, the Bataar skeleton was substantially undervalued on the import documents. Customs forms listed its value at $15,000, in contrast to the $950,000 to $1.5 million list price in a 2012 auction catalog and the actual auction sale price of $1.05 million. The Bataar skeleton was also incorrectly described as two large, rough fossil reptile heads; six boxes of broken fossil bones; three rough fossil reptiles; one fossil lizard; three rough fossil reptiles and one fossil reptile skull.

On May 22, the President of Mongolia sent a letter to SDNY formally requesting the office’s assistance in preserving Mongolia’s cultural heritage by seeking forfeiture of the Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton.”

On June 5, at the request of the President of Mongolia, several paleontologists specializing in Tyrannosaurus Bataars examined the Bataar skeleton. They concluded that it is a Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton that was unearthed from the western Gobi Desert in Mongolia between 1995 and 2005. On June 18, SDNY filed a civil action seeking the forfeiture of the Bataar skeleton and the district court issued a warrant authorizing HSI to seize the Bataar skeleton.

On Sept. 24, SDNY filed an amended civil forfeiture complaint which included the original paleontological reports, as well as additional reports from those same paleontologists and others. The additional reports definitively state that the Bataar skeleton came from Mongolia based on the particularized coloring of the bones.

On Oct. 17, HSI special agents arrested Eric Prokopi, 38, of Gainesville, Fla., the importer of the Bataar skeleton, on one count of conspiracy to smuggle illegal goods, possess stolen property, and make false statements; one count of smuggling goods into the United States and one count of interstate sale and receipt of stolen goods. Prokopi, a self-described “commercial paleontologist” was arrested on charges stemming from his illegal importation of the Bataar and other dinosaur fossils into the United States.

On Dec. 27, shortly after his arrest, Prokopi pleaded guilty to engaging in a scheme to illegally import the fossilized remains of numerous dinosaurs that had been illegally removed from their native countries illegally and smuggled into the United States. As part of his plea agreement, Prokopi consented to the forfeiture of the Bataar skeleton. Prokopi also agreed to forfeit a second, nearly complete Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton; a Saurolophus skeleton and an Oviraptor skeleton. The skeletons were in his possession but have since been seized by HSI special agents. He further agreed to forfeit his interest in a third Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton, which was located in Great Britain.

On Feb. 14, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, SDNY, entered a judgment forfeiting the Bataar skeleton to the United States for its return to Mongolia.

Skull-A-Day

They actually used my son’s milk jug skeleton on the Skull-A-Day blog .

He made it for Halloween, and I took some shots and put them on my blog (here’s our blog on it).

Skull-A-Day is the creation of Noah Scalin, an artist who made a different piece of skull-themed art and posted them on his website each day for 365 days in 2007 and 2008.

Scalin has since opened up his site to reader submissions. He also has a coffee table book.

Here is our entry as it appeared on Skull-A-Day on Dec. 14, 2010.

Milk Skeleton

Our son made this out of plastic milk jugs for Halloween.  For the photo, I lit it with a red LED light.