LOOTED MONGOLIAN DINOSAUR SKELETON FINALLY RETURNED FROM FRANCE

The specimen, a rare Tarbosaurus baatar—the Asian cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex—was confiscated in 2015 in the central French town of Gannat after being smuggled through South Korea. Public Accounts Minister Amelie de Montchalin is set to formally hand over the skeleton along with roughly 30 other fossils, including dinosaur eggs.

“This is an entire Tarbosaurus, estimated at around 700,000 euros when it was seized, but since then the market has exploded,” French customs official Sophie Hocquerelle told France 2, adding that its value may now be two to three times higher. She described the specimen as “an exceptional discovery.”

France’s Public Accounts Minister Amelie de Montchalin (right) and Mongolia’s Minister of Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth Undram Chinbat sign the handover of prehistoric cultural artifacts to Mongolian authorities at the Ministry of the Economy and Finance building (Bercy), in Paris on December 8, 2025. / AFP

Tarbosaurus baatar, which roamed Asia during the late Cretaceous period before vanishing 65 million years ago, has never been found outside the continent, making the fossil’s recovery particularly significant for Mongolia.

The country has spent years trying to reclaim fossils that vanished from the Gobi Desert—a region long targeted by both palaeontologists and smugglers since explorer Roy Chapman Andrews unearthed dinosaur eggs there a century ago.

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Under Mongolian law, fossils cannot be exported without explicit authorisation and are typically returned when seized abroad.

The case comes amid growing global scrutiny of fossil trafficking, highlighted by high-profile sales such as the record-breaking triceratops auction in Paris in 2021, where an eight-meter specimen fetched 6.6 million euros.