French customs authorities today returned to Brazil 998 fossils illegally excavated from the Araripe basin, a paleentheological site located on the borders of the states of Ceará, Pernambuco and Piauí and recognized by UNESCO as one of 161 world geoparks since 2006.
The handover ceremony took place in the port of Havre in Normandy, in the north of the country. The fossils belong to the Cretaceous period (the last period of the dinosaur age, from 144 million to 65 million years ago) and were handed over in the presence of Deputy Attorney General Hindenburg Chateaubriand Filho and other Brazilian officials.
Chateubriand Filho, in a message he published, said, “It is important to emphasize the importance of international legal cooperation that needs to be developed, but it is essential in such cases. I thank everyone who contributed to the return of the fossils.” from Twitter.
The pieces that attracted the attention of many collectors were taken from the Araripe basin to be sold on the internet.
It includes fish, dinosaur remains, turtles, as well as crustaceans, insects and fossilized plants, and will be delivered to the Urca Paleontological Museum (Cariri Regional University) at Plácido Cidade Nuvens in Santana do Cariri, Ceará.
The material is expected to arrive in Brazil in about 15 days, according to museum director Allysson Pinheiro, who attended the fossil delivery ceremony in Le Havre and spoke to RFI when he arrived in the city.
“Our agents were directly involved in the confiscation, but also the return of illegally exported cultural goods,” François Dutheil, Deputy Director General of French Customs, said in a message posted on Twitter during the ceremony. Said.
The return of items is part of the so-called Fortnight of Cultural Goods, promoted by French Customs, which illustrates the agency’s action against this type of smuggling.
According to the Brazilian Constitution, fossils are part of the national heritage, they cannot be owned by individuals, sold or left the country.
The items were discovered by the French Customs authorities in the port of Havre in 2013 and were stored in barrels as common goods.
After expert examination, the authenticity and forgery of the fossils were confirmed. After several years before international justice, the case was settled in February 2021. The Public Ministry of Lyon in east-central France later ordered extradition to Brazil.
This is not the first time that France has allowed fossils seized by human traffickers to be returned for sale. In 2019, the country’s Justice authorized the return of 46 items illegally taken to Europe.
The investigations began after Brazilian paleontologist Taissa Rodrigues, a professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo, filed a complaint with the Federal Public Ministry. The scientist received a warning that the fossils would go on sale on eBay in 2014.
“For Brazil, the fossil is a property of the State of the Union and cannot be commercialized. Knowing this, Taissa, a great defender of fossils and this heritage, saw this material available to them through an internet search. She then filed a complaint with the Public Department,” explained Allysson Pinheiro.
“They all come from the Cretaceous Araripe sedimentary basin, which is considered one of the largest fossil beds of this period in the world due to its quality and amount of fossil preservation,” he added.
According to him, researchers at the university in Ceará received a request to confirm the authenticity of the fragments.
“We did a technical study, proved that the material would come from the Araripe basin, and informed the Public Ministry to complete the judicial process,” he said.
According to him, this process is important “because it recognizes that, in addition to being a material asset, fossils are a cultural asset for the people of Brazil and especially the people of the region where they are found in Cariri.”
source: Noticias
