The dinosaur smuggled out of Mongolia
New York, United States, 2012
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
In May 2012, a nearly complete skeleton of Tarbosaurus bataar, an Asian relative of Tyrannosaurus, was auctioned in New York for more than a million dollars. The government of Mongolia protested: the species is found only in the Gobi Desert, and the country's law prohibits the export of fossils.
The investigation showed that a Florida fossil dealer had imported the bones with false declarations of origin and value. He pleaded guilty, and the skeleton was returned to Mongolia in 2013. Twenty years earlier, the dispute over the Tyrannosaurus "Sue" had already shown the value and the legal confusion surrounding such fossils.
Sources
In the game
Tough Bone
Rockies Museum of Paleontology, Bozeman, Montana, 10:40 pm. Paleontologist Harriet Sloan tapped her fingers on the juvenile Tyrannosaurus skull nicknamed Mabel and heard a hollow sound. It was painted plaster.
The game borrows the dinosaur skeleton diverted for a multimillion-dollar sale to a collector. The swap for a cast, the characters and the outcome are fiction.
