UK seizes Jurassic dinosaur fossils worth £12m from Chinese money-laundering suspect
It has been reported that rare dinosaur fossils worth more than £12 million have been seized following an agreement with a Singapore-based Chinese businessman as part of a civil recovery investigation.
A lawyer for the National Crime Agency (NCA) told a hearing on Tuesday that the agency had seized Jurassic dinosaur skeletons of two allosaurus and a stegosaurus, estimated to be about 150 million years old, from Su Binghai and his company, Su Empire Limited, under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
The legislation allows authorities to take back property deemed illegally acquired, even in the absence of a criminal conviction.
The case was opened by the NCA as a civil recovery investigation. The NCA provided no details of the allegations that led to the case involving Mr Su.
The NCA said Mr Su would forfeit three fossilized dinosaur skeletons, nine London flats worth £15 million and 11 Chinese works of art. However, 25 percent of the income from the sale will be given to him. His lawyers declined to comment after the hearing, according to Bloomberg.
The dinosaur skeletons were purchased for £12.4 million at Christie’s Jurassic Icons auction last year. The paintings published at that time resembled an exhibition in a natural history museum.
Christie’s said the lot represented the first dinosaur skeletons to be offered for sale at the King Street auction house, and included “a stegosaurus, instantly recognizable with its tail spikes and rows of armored plates, and a pair of fearsome carnivorous allosaurus.”
All three specimens were found “in close proximity to each other” at the Meilyn quarry in Wyoming and were described as having an “aesthetic black color.”
The 11 Chinese artifacts seized in the case were purchased at auction in 2022 for more than £400,000.
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The NCA said Mr Su agreed to “full and final resolution of all claims”, according to court documents seen by Reuters. NCA officials said the dinosaur skeletons are currently kept in a warehouse in London.
“I doubt any of us will ever encounter one of these again,” Judge Gavin Mansfield said during the hearing.
Mr Su was accused of being involved in Singapore’s biggest money laundering case of 2023, which resulted in at least 10 people being convicted and sent to prison.
Authorities have seized cash, real estate, cryptocurrency and other assets worth three billion Singapore dollars that were used to launder the proceeds of overseas organized crime, including fraud and online gambling. An Interpol notice was issued against Mr. Su, but it was later withdrawn after he and his wife reached an agreement with the authorities under which they would lose their government passports.
