[meteorite-list] Honduras Hunts For Moon Rock Thieves

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:30:01 2004
Message-ID: <200309290452.VAA00752_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/28/moon.rock.ap/index.html

Honduras hunts for moon rock thieves
Associated Press
September 28, 2003

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- Authorities announced this week that they
are hunting for thieves who stole an Apollo moon rock from the Honduran
presidential residence at least nine years ago.

U.S. President Richard M. Nixon gave the rock to his Honduran counterpart,
general Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, in 1973. It was placed inside a transparent
globe on a wooden plaque bearing the Honduran flag and was displayed in the
presidential residence.

The rock disappeared sometime between 1990 and 1994. It was recovered in the
United States in 1998 when federal agents staged an elaborate sting designed
to trap dealers in black-market lunar rocks. A federal court later held that
the moon rock and plaque rightfully belonged to Honduras.

On Monday, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe presented the recovered lunar rock
to Honduran Ambassador Mario Canahuati. Canahuati planned to return it next
week to Honduras, where it will be put on display in a secure place in the
capital, officials said. They would not say where the rock will be kept.

On Thursday, Attorney General Roy Edmundo Medina said that Honduran
authorities "are in touch with U.S. officials to prosecute those who stole
and then sold the object."

"We are conducting an intense investigation," he said. Medina did not say
why authorities had waited until now to get involved in the case.

The rock was brought from the moon in 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17, the
last of the Apollo moon-landing missions. It was one of many moon samples
given to nations of the world by the United States.
Received on Mon 29 Sep 2003 12:52:32 AM PDT