BANGKOK, Feb 25 (AFP) - A Thai man has been arrested for trying to sell fossils of dinosaurs up to 200 million years old to police posing as artifact buyers in a major sting operation, police and diplomats said Friday.
Piriya Watcharajit, 25, was nabbed Monday in Bangkok by Crime Suppression police who said they had been tipped off by US customs agents following a previous seizure in the United States of bones which originated from Thailand.
Authorities involved in the sting operation confiscated 78 pieces from the suspect, and found 30 more during a search of his home. Five large fossils had also been packed into boxes, apparently ready for shipment, police said.
Piriya, who faces seven years in prison and a fine of 700,000 baht (18,000 dollars), was part of a wider ring of fossil traffickers, they said.
"An investigation revealed that since 1999 they had trafficked 200,000 dollars worth of fossils over the Internet," the police statement said.
The seized bones were mainly of herbivores including huge sauropods from the Jurassic period, police said.
Mastodon teeth were also confiscated, according to a US customs official.
"This was a very large seizure," he told AFP. Most seizures of dinosaur fossils take place at auctions and successful large sting operations such as the one in Thailand have been rare, he said.
Thai police said the suspect admitted to buying the fossils in the poor northeast provinces of Khon Kaen and Kalasin from villagers who feared their land may be expropriated if they informed authorities there were dinosaur bones on their property.
Archeologists in recent decades have found the remains of large plant-eating dinosaurs they believe roamed northeast Thailand some 160 million years ago.
In 1987 scientists excavated the remains of an unknown dinosaur species and named it in honour of a Thai princess.
(All accompanying pictures by AFP)
