By EFE,
Buenos Aires : Argentina’s customs service seized a number of fossils from a US researcher who was attempting to take them out of the country, authorities have said.
The confiscated material, a total of 45 rocks containing fossil remains, were about to be taken “illegally from the country by a US citizen with a scientific research group from the University of California”, the customs service said in a communique.
The seizure was made Monday at the airport in the western city of Mendoza, “where a woman tried to pass through with 45 stones distributed in two (bags) that in total weighed 20.9 kilos”, the statement said.
Customs agents searched the bags because of a complaint made by the Argentine Paleontological Association, which warned that the University of California group was going to try and take rocks with fossils in them from the northwestern province of San Juan.
The customs service issued a nationwide alert, with special emphasis on the northern and central region, against the possibility that some people would attempt to remove rocks with probable fossil content.
The Argentine Paleontological Association says the US researchers have been working in the country without the proper authorisation.