As you all know by now, I'm on the commercial side of the profession. We all try to do our best, doing strat sections, providing all data and complete documentation down to matrix samples and ancillary fossils with specemins... But it's people like this that end up giving us a bad name no matter what hard work we do. Scroll down a bit for the obligatory quote from Berkeley.



Feds seized fossils at gem shows
Interpol tip led to rare materials from Argentina

By Becky Pallack

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.24.2006



Federal agents seized nearly 7 tons of rare fossils — including three football-sized dinosaur eggs — from a vendor during the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase, an official announced Thursday.

Investigators believe the fossils were smuggled out of Argentina and say a tip to Interpol in Buenos Aires helped uncover the scheme that brought them here, said Supervisory Special Agent Lisa Fairchild of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tucson.

No arrests have been made but the investigation is not finished, she said.

The dinosaur eggs were valued by scientists at more than $4,000 each, but were priced at $1,400 at the show, Fairchild said. The seized items also include fossilized crab claws and prehistoric pine cones, some still encased in stone. The pine cones were priced at $80 apiece, she said.

After the tip came in on Feb. 7, undercover agents watched the Argentinian-based vendor, known as Rhodo Co., and took digital pictures of the suspicious items, Fairchild said.

Agents examined the pictures and conferred with representatives of the Argentinian Paleontological Society, who believe the items are 65 million years old and were removed from land in Neuquen province in Argentina, she said.

Agents had to act quickly because the local shows ended on Feb. 11, Fairchild said. So on Feb. 10, they seized an estimated 10,000 fossils, which were stored in two dozen 55-gallon barrels at an AKS Gem, Jewelry, Rock & Mineral Show and a Tucson Showplace show.

"We're looking forward to repatriating these items to Argentina so their paleontologists can examine them," Fairchild said. "They're part of the historical heritage of that country and they should be returned."



Possibly no law was broken

Still, agents say there's a chance no law was broken.

Argentina passed a law in 2003 making it illegal to export fossils without government permission. But if the fossils were exported before 2003, there may be no prosecutable crime, Fairchild said.

How and when the fossils arrived in Tucson and who brought them here remains under investigation, Fairchild said. The case will be presented to the U.S. Attorney's Office to determine if charges will be filed. A conviction for the transportation, sale or receipt of stolen merchandise carries a maximum five-year prison term, she said.

There is no timeline for returning the fossils because forfeiture proceedings will take at least a month, she said.

The case was unique for local Customs agents, who typically investigate drug smuggling, people smuggling, child exploitation and money laundering, she said.



Black and gray markets

Like stolen art, there is a black market and a gray market for smuggled fossils, said Mark Goodwin, a paleontologist at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley, Calif.

Once a fossil is illegally collected, its roots are hard to trace, he said, and collectors might not know what they're getting when they buy at roadside shows such as some in Tucson — which Goodwin describes as the "pawn shop of paleontology."

"This is a cash-and-carry business in Tucson," he said.

Items stolen from his museum once surfaced in Tucson before they were sold overseas, he said. And it was an international controversy several years ago when a couple paid $80,000 to a vendor at a Tucson show for a fossil that later was determined to be a fake, according to a Nature magazine article.

"It is a part of that business that the public is not aware of for the most part," Goodwin said. "It's detrimental to paleontology."

Oversight is minimal and fines and penalties are so low that they don't deter smugglers, Goodwin said.



Some items are priceless

The danger of a commercial market for fossils is that it removes them from the scientific and educational domain, where the items are priceless, said Mike Woodburn, a retired paleontologist who lives in Flagstaff. He also is a member of the government affairs committee of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Fossils have only become more valuable to collectors through the years, he said.

The problem with buying and selling fossils is that one person's treasure is simply a rock to another, said Rick Trapp, chairman of the show committee for the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society, a local nonprofit group. He said it's hard to know what prices are reasonable, what's been smuggled and what's been legally exported.

The AKS and Tucson Showplace shows were not affiliated with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. Representatives of the smaller shows could not be reached after hours Thursday.

Jose Lopez, the owner of Rhodo Co., was vacationing in the United States and could not be reached for comment, an employee told The Associated Press. He said Lopez was not due to return until next month.

Damn. They should be locked up just for this reason only. :crazy:

So true. Haven't these people ever heard of bubble wrap?