BEIJING, May 13-- A Canadian caught selling 240 million year-old Chinese fossils on the Internet faces up to five years in jail, a Shanghai court heard yesterday.

Barre Pascal is accused of attempting to send by post a package of eight keichousaurus fossils by express mail to a collector in the United States on November 6 last year, prosecutors told the Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Procuratorate.

Pascal and his Chinese wife, Wei Muhong, were caught after being tailed by Chinese customs after officers received a tip-off about their illegal activities, said prosecutor Zhang Junying.

During September of last year, Shanghai Customs were notified by the Anti-Smuggling Bureau from Shenyang Custom in Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

A gang from northern China smuggling fossils- strictly protected by the antiquity protection law- were seen actively selling their illegal wares in Shanghai and other eastern cities. Three of the gang members were stationed in Shanghai and ran an antiques shop. Yu Lichun, Zhu Xiaogang and Yao Cheng were watched by custom officials.

Pascal and Wei were arrested after they were seen visiting the shop on Duolun Road and taking away fossils.

They posted the items for sale on the Internet. When a US collector agreed to buy them, Wei Muhong asked her brother, Wei Heping, to mail the stones out of the country.

Investigators later found the couple received US$2,090 from an American identified as David, for the eight stones.

Further probes revealed the pair had started purchasing and selling fossils on the Internet from 2003.

Testimonies by Yu and Zhu revealed the gang had purchased- after requests from the couple- fossils including keichousaurus and fossilized dinosaur eggs from antiquities markets in Guilin of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Another five of the couple's regular customers, one from Britain and four from the US, were later identified."But because of obvious difficulties, we won't take any legal action against the buyers," the prosecutor said.

He said it is difficult to calculate how much Pascal and Wei have earned from their illegal business as some of the fossils they sold were fake. Many, however, were genuine, according to the suspects' account.

Wei Muhong's had several bank accounts containing over 150,000 yuan(US$18,138). US$16,000 has been seized by the courts.

Expecting to give birth this month, Wei did not appear in court yesterday. Zhang said she will be sentenced after she gives birth.

Pascal claimed in court that although it was wrong of him to not try and stop his wife from smuggling, he was never part of the business.

Xu Qing, Pascal's lawyer, also argued the fossils could not be counted as antiquities."There is no clear legal interpretation spelling out that ancient animal fossils are antiquities," he argued.

(Source: China Daily)