Last summer a white van sped under the scorching sun, crossing two northeast provinces to Hunchun, the Chinese border town wedged between Russia and North Korea.
The police, acting on a tip, closed in and nabbed two South Koreans and three Chinese with their suspicious cargo.
Ten 'dragons' - well-preserved dinosaur skeletons - were among the 2,364 pieces of fossils that were about to be smuggled across the border into a multimillion dollar international black market.
The 'July 18 case', the largest fossil smuggling operation uncovered in China, came to trial in Shengyang, the capital of Liaoning province last month, but the court adjourned without a verdict.
The case threw a harsh light on the neglect, loopholes and huge profits of trafficking fossils. Western Liaoning on the eastern flank of the Mongolian plateau was the first link in the chain of the lucrative operation.
In the past decade, almost all the startling discoveries of paleolithic birds and small-framed dinosaurs were made in this poor region of largely bare hills. The area more than 120 million years ago was dotted with fresh water lakes and volcanoes.
Volcanic eruptions spewed ash in the sky, suffocating animals. Those that fell into the water were quickly buried in the fine sands at the bottom of the lake. As a result, the area yields a rich variety of birds, reptiles, fish and plants in extremely well-preserved fossils.