Nicolas Cage To Return Dinosaur Skull To Mongolia? Linked To A Convicted Smuggler?

Actor Nicolas Cage has agreed to turn over a rare Tyrannosaurus bataar dinosaur skull to the United States authorities so that it can be repatriated to Mongolia, according to Reuters.

Last week, the office of U.S. attorney Preet Bharara filed a civil forfeiture complaint to take the dinosaur skull. The "National Treasure" actor was not named as the owner and is not accused of any wrongdoing and after learning the circumstances, Cage voluntarily agreed to turn the skull over, revealed BBC.

It has been confirmed that Cage bought the skull in March 2007 from I.M. Chait, which is a Beverly Hills gallery. The "Con Air" star bought the skull for $276,000 dollars, outbidding fellow actor, Leonardo DiCaprio based on previous reports.

Alex Shack, a publicist for the actor said the Cage received a certificate of authenticity in an email.

In July 2014, Nicolas Cage was contacted by the Homeland Security to inform him that the dinosaur skull may have been stolen and now, investigators have determined that the skull had been taken illegally from Mongolia.

The I.M. Chait gallery also previously purchased and sold a smuggled dinosaur skeleton from Erik Prokopi, who is a convicted Paleontologist.

Bharara called Prokopi a "one-man black market in prehistoric fossils."

It is unclear whether Cage's skull is connected to Prokopi. The Paleontologist was convicted in Dec. 2012 when he smuggled a Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton out of the Gobi desert in Mongolia. He later was sentenced to three months in prison.

Part of his guilty plea was to help prosecutors recover at the least 17 other fossils. Bahrara's office has recovered over a dozen Mongolian fossils since 2012 and this includes three full Tyrannosaurus bataar skeletons.

"Each of these fossils represents a culturally and scientifically important artifact looted from its rightful owner," said Bharara last week.

Assistant U.S. Attorney, Martin Bell is the one who prosecuted Prokopi and is also the lead government lawyer in Nicolas Cage's dinosaur skull case.

Like its famour relative the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Tyrannosaurus bataar was also a carnivore. It lived approximately 70 million years ago and its remains have only been discovered in Mongolia.

Exporting dinosaur fossils has been criminalized in 1924.

The gallery has also not been accused of any wrongdoing, reported Business Insider.