Nicolas Cage bought the skull of a Tyrannosaurus bataar eight years ago from Beverly Hills gallery called I.M. Chait. In 2007, through an auction, the actor paid $276,000 for the prized artifact but it turns out that the skull is a stolen national treasure from Mongolia, thus he needs to return it.
Apparently, the actor was not aware of the circumstances surrounding his purchase from the auction house. It was later learned that the gallery is also oblivious to the fact that the skull is a smuggled item and this is why neither Cage or the gallery has been charge for lawbreaking, Strait Times has learned.
The I.M. Chait gallery initially bought a smuggled skeleton of a dinosaur from paleontologist named Eric Prokopi. In 2012, the seller was convicted and pleaded guilty of illegally shipping the fossils out of Mongolia. The court handed down a three-month jail term to Prokopi just in 2014.
In any case, Cage's publicist Alex Schack confirmed via email that the gallery gave the "National Treasure" star a certificate of authenticity then in July 2014, he was contacted by the Department of Homeland Security to let him know that the prehistoric skull which he purchased appears to be stolen.
Schack added that when the investigators verified that the skull was indeed smuggled out of Gobi Desert in Mongolia, the actor immediately agreed to return it.
Meanwhile, Preet Bharara's special agent Glenn Sorge said in a statement obtained by The Guardian, "Cultural artifacts such as this Bataar Skull represent a part of Mongolian national cultural heritage. It belongs to the people of Mongolia. These priceless antiquities are not souvenirs to be sold to private collectors or hobbyists."
With the efforts of Bharara law office, several fossils of the Tyrannosaurus bataar have already been shipped back to Mongolia in the last few years. Prokopi played a key role in the retrieval of 17 fossils after he provided information as part of his guilty plea with the court.