Rare dinosaur fossils worth more than £12m have been seized following a settlement with a Singapore-based Chinese businessman in respect of a civil recovery investigation, it has been reported.
A lawyer for the National Crime Agency (NCA) said at a court hearing on Tuesday that the agency had recovered the Jurassic-era dinosaur skeletons of two allosauruses and a stegosaurus, estimated to be around 150 million years old, from Su Binghai and his company Su Empire Limited, under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
The legislation lets the authorities recover property deemed to have been acquired unlawfully, even without a criminal conviction.
The case was brought by the NCA as a civil recovery investigation. The NCA gave no details of the allegations that had given rise to the case involving Mr Su.
The NCA said Mr Su will forfeit three complete fossilised skeletons of dinosaurs, nine apartments in London, valued at £15m, and 11 Chinese artworks. He will, however, be given 25 per cent of the proceeds from the sales. His lawyers declined to comment after the court hearing, according to Bloomberg.
The dinosaur skeletons were bought last year at Christie’s Jurassic Icons auction for £12.4m. The pictures released at that time resembled a display from a museum of natural history.
Christie’s said the lot represented the first dinosaur skeletons offered at its King Street auction house, comprising “the instantly recognisable stegosaurus, with its tail spikes and rows of armoured plates, alongside a pair of the fearsome carnivorous allosaurus”.
All three specimens were found in the Meilyn quarry in Wyoming “in close proximity to each other” and were described as having “an aesthetic black colour”.
The 11 Chinese artworks recovered in the case had been bought at auction in 2022 for more than £400,000.
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Mr Su has agreed to a “full and final settlement of all claims”, the NCA said, according to court documents seen by Reuters. NCA officials said the dinosaur skeletons were currently being held in a London storehouse.
“I doubt that any of us will be dealing with 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 jail.
Authorities seized cash, real estate, cryptocurrency and other assets worth three billion Singapore dollars used for laundering the proceeds of overseas organised crime, including scams and online gambling. An Interpol notice was issued against Mr Su, but it was later dropped after he and his wife agreed to a deal with the authorities that saw them forfeit their passports to the state.
