The Nicolas Cage Resource Thread

Don_Barracuda · July 4, 2015, 10:52pm

@SoVi3t why do you have that av??

SoVi3t · July 5, 2015, 2:27am

av jack

WTF-AKUMA-HAX · December 20, 2015, 2:40pm

Nick Cage purchased a stolen Tyrannosaurus (not Rex)

for $276,000

Its finally rightfully going back to Mongolia.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/28/nicolas-cage-dinosaur-skull-illegal-imported

That was Mongolia’s lucky break this week, after US attorney Preet Bharara filed a civil forfeiture complaint regarding a certain Tyrannosaurus bataar skull that entered the United States unlawfully in 2006 and was sold for $230,000 (plus a buyer’s premium of $46,000) at a California auction house in 2007.

A rare cousin of T. rex, T. bataar flourished in the modern-day Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in the late Cretaceous some 70 million years ago. As a Mongolian native, the animals’ mortal remains are considered “cultural artifacts” and belong to the Mongolian government by law. But in 2006, some wise guy decided to pull a fast one and list a T. bataar skull on a customs form as “fossil stone pieces.” It worked, and the fossil stones were soon sold for an impressive price tag to an anonymous buyer.

Homeland Security Investigations examined the skull in September 2015, and confirmed that it “rightfully belongs to the government of Mongolia and had been illegally imported into the United States.” It’s but one of many, many ancient reptilians the US has had to relinquish to Mongolian authorities over the past few years, including, according to The Guardian, three full T. Bataar skeletons, six Oviraptors, a Protoceratops, and numerous prehistoric lizards and turtles.