He cited customs records in France which showed that, in 2007, far more wine was exported to China than appeared on Chinese customs records.
An inspection of customs records revealed that the specimen was not Prokopi's first contested dinosaur.
The scale of the deception can be estimated by comparing customs records with insurance records: though smugglers lied to the government, they told the truth to their insurers.
An Interpol analyst added: "If they get caught with a container of counterfeit sneakers, they lose their goods and get a mark on their customs records.
In 2001, a twenty-five-year-old Caijing reporter, thumbing through customs records, discovered that Yinguangxia Holdings, one of China's largest listed companies, had posted online a falsified claim of eighty-seven minlion dollars in profits.
Labor activists, citing customs records, company Web sites or labels discovered in the wreckage, say that the factories produced clothing for JC Penney; Cato Fashions; Benetton; Primark, the low-cost British store chain; and other retailers.
Apple Tours, which was founded in 1991 by Harry Grant, a New Jersey developer, had for years been cited for a range of misdeeds, from fabricating customs records on imported buses to skirting environmental regulations to switching permits on buses to avoid inspection to operating an illegal garage in a residential neighborhood.
Walmart, Gap and H&M did not use any of the five factories in the building that collapsed, but customs records show that two American companies — the Children's Place and Cato Fashions — bought significant amounts of apparel from factories there over the last year.
While the survey information comes directly from Cyprus customs records, researchers are befuddled by the lack of transparency.
The other banned garment maker in the recent customs records, Simco Dresses, was blacklisted in January.
