News Digest

Returning a national treasure: Nicolas Cage hands over stolen dinosaur skull

Actor Nicolas Cage has agreed to hand a rare stolen dinosaur skull he bought in good faith for $276,000 back to the US authorities so it can be returned to Mongolia. The office of Preet Bharara, the US attorney in Manhattan, filed a civil forfeiture complaint last week to take possession of the Tyrannosaurus bataar skull, which will be repatriated to Mongolia. The suit did not specifically name Cage as the owner but the Hollywood star’s publicist confirmed he bought the skull in 2007 from a gallery in Beverly Hills.

Each of these fossils represents a culturally and scientifically important artifact looted from its rightful owner.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara

The National Treasure actor is not accused of wrongdoing, and authorities said the owner voluntarily agreed to turn over the skull after learning of the circumstances. Cage outbid fellow movie star Leonardo DiCaprio for the skull, according to prior news reports. The I.M. Chait gallery had previously purchased and sold an illegally smuggled duck-billed dinosaur skeleton from convicted paleontologist Eric Prokopi, whom Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called a “one-man black market in prehistoric fossils”. The Chait gallery has not been accused of wrongdoing. The Tyrannosaurus bataar, like its more famous relative Tyrannosaurus rex, was a carnivore that lived approximately 70 million years ago.