Fossil Trafficking: Morocco’s $50 Million Dinosaur Black Market Exposed

In Morocco, nearly 20,000 families live off the exploitation of dinosaur fossils, the El Mundo newspaper investigation reveals. This illegal trade generates around $50 million, without however benefiting the families. This income rather benefits Europeans and Americans who tread Moroccan soil, in search of dinosaur remains.

Yet there is a decree dating from 1994 which prohibits the export "of collections and specimens for zoological and botanical collections, mineralogy and anatomy, objects for collections of historical, archaeological, paleontological, ethnographic and numismatic interest".

Interviewed by the Spanish newspaper in the city of Arfoud, Saïd, a Moroccan fossil seller, confided that most of the remains that interested people find are "trilobites (extinct marine arthropods dating back 542 million years and living in waters similar to those of Antarctica)".

Juan Avilès, a 27-year-old geologist from Alicante, Spain, is the promoter of the fourth most active website in the world in this field, "Jurasic dreams", dedicated to the sale of dinosaur fossils.

Unlike some, he reassured that he has "the export papers, pays taxes and only buys from sellers who have their license to sell fossils". He is "very critical of the sale of vertebrate fossils".