KRASNOYARSK, January 12. /TASS/. A resident of Russia’s Stavropol Region was detained at a Krasnoyarsk airport in eastern Siberia on Friday, when a bag weighing 10 kg and containing mammoth tusks was discovered in his luggage, the press service Siberian Federal District transport police told TASS.
"While inspecting individuals entering the air terminal, the police found a plastic bag with fragments of bones resembling mammoth’s tusk in a passenger’s bag," the report said. "The package weighed about 10 kg."
"The young man, however, did not have permission to transport cultural values," the police report noted.
In the meantime, the 25-year-old man claimed he had found the bag near a garbage can on a city street and decided to take it back home hoping to create souvenirs out of the bones.
An expert examination conducted by the Krasnoyarsk Museum of Local History showed eight of the bone fragments were parts of a mammoth’s tusk and one used to be part of a walrus tusk.
Experts also said the mammoth’s tusk was more than 4,500 years old.
The young man is now facing the prospect of a fine of up to 40,000 rubles ($708) under the Code of Administrative Offenses for evading one’s civic duty to turn over items of cultural value discovered during excavations and earthworks to state authorities.