to be precise, there was no Archaeopteryx fossil forgery, the forgery was of a supposedly different, previously unknown specie - Archaeoraptor. And it was another Chinese paleantologist who discovered and made public the forgery. ... So when you say "THEY" that's painting it with a pretty broad brush, after all, there are forgeries of all kinds being done all over the world.
Yeah, this map has too many holes in it ...
sorry about the mistake...i was going off of memory there. because another chinese paleantologist made the forgery public doesn't answer the question of why they would do that. I have heard that the farmers there figured out that paleontologists would pay big money for the fossiles and a market of sorts developed, but why was it done in the first place?