50-million-year-old fossil stolen from Trade Fair stall. Here’s how the police nabbed him

To trace the accused, police said investigators had to review footage from over 100 CCTV cameras in and around the scene, piecing together his movements.

“We saw him milling around the stall where the fossils had been displayed. He waited till people at the stall were distracted enough before he pocketed the fossil and walked away without anyone noticing,” said DCP IITF, Sumit Kumar Jha.

“The GSI staff noticed the missing fossil later in the day… CCTV in the venue caught the accused in the act,” the officer added.

Through technical analysis, police identified the accused as Manoj Kumar Mishra, a 49-year-old resident of Noida Sector 22. “During questioning, Mishra admitted to the theft and the fossil was recovered from his possession. A ticket dated November 21 that he used for entry into IITF-2024 was also seized,” said DCP Jha.

Mishra, a Receiving Manager at a five-star hotel in Noida, is a regular visitor to the trade fair and has a strong interest in art and collectibles. “He intended to sell the fossil for a significant price,” added DCP Jha. Mishra was booked under BNS Section 303 (theft).

Dr Praveer Pankaj, who had reported the fossil missing to the police, said: “So many people have seen fossils in books and pictures. The point of the open display was to give people their first interaction with a real-life fossil… we don’t know the monetary value of the fossil, the GSI doesn’t evaluate such things.”

“We had brought the fossil from our Jaipur office… it had been excavated from the Jaisalmer area and we’d hoped to showcase it at the IITF to students and common people for educational purposes. If he (the accused) really wanted one, he could have found fossils himself. Plenty of them are found in mountains and rivers. He didn’t have to steal it.”

Explaining the importance of the fossil, Dr. Pankaj added: “It is roughly 5.6 to 4.1 crore years old… these kinds of fossils are generally used for delineating the paleoenvironment it belonged to, which means we use the fossil to see what kind of environment existed in the area so many years ago. From this particular fossil, we could understand that once upon a time, Jaisalmer used to be a shallow marine environment or a coastal area.”

The recovered artifact, weighing 1 kg and measuring 14 cm in length, 10 cm in width, and 12 cm in height, was handed back to the GSI. The investigation is on to ascertain whether any accomplices or potential buyers were involved, said police.