That’s a lot of Bronto Burgers!
A crooked fossil dealer agreed to forfeit at least six dinosaur skeletons — along with some “odd bones here and there” — in a bid to avoid the slammer for smuggling the prehistoric remains into the U.S.
Eric Prokopi, 38, also promised to help federal authorities pursue the accomplices who aided his scheme to sell looted Cretaceous Period relics from Mongolia and China.
Manhattan federal prosecutor Martin Bell noted that Prokopi’s illegal collection was “among the longest dinosaur shopping lists you’ll see today.”
Prokopi, of Gainesville, Fla., was busted earlier this year following the seizure of a Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton that he sold at a Manhattan auction for $1.05 million.
According to the feds, the fearsome fossil was illegally removed from Mongolia in violation of a 1924 law declaring dinosaur bones the property of that country’s government.
Prokopi pleaded guilty to three felony counts, including conspiracy and “entry of goods by means of false statements.”
He admitted smuggling “a few shipments of fossils of Mongolian origin” into the U.S. between 2010 and 2012 by falsely claiming they came from Great Britain.
He also said the labels on the crates were intentionally “vague and misleading” so they “didn’t draw attention to the shipment.”
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said federal authorities planned to return the forfeited fossils “to their countries of origin.”