Federal agents have charged a Florida man with smuggling a 70 million year-old dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia into the United States.
Prosecutors call suspect Eric Prokopi of Gainesville, Florida a “one-man black market in prehistoric fossils.”
Prokopi allegedly brought the dinosaur bones into the United States and reassembled them to form a Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton. The skeleton sold at auction in May for more than $1 million.
Mongolia says Prokopi illegally dug up the bones and snuck them into the United States.
Prosecutors allege Prokopi also smuggled a second Mongolian dinosaur skeleton and one from China. He denies the charges.
If convicted, Prokopi faces up to 35 years in prison.