Customs Department Crushed Bt40 Million Ferrari

[baabaabobo]

The Customs Department Wednesday crushed a Bt40 million Ferrari to metal scraps to prevent "car laundering".

The department's director-general Chawalit Satemethakul Wednesday presided over the destroying of an unclaimed Ferrari 456 GT car, which was seized from a Samut Prakan garage on June 28.

The car was found to have no key parts such as an engine's interface box, an antilock braking system (ABS) and its pump, a transmission interface box, car wiring systems, and an exhaust pipe, Chawalit said.

To cut criminals' opportunity the department decided to destroy the car instead of putting in an auction as usual, he said. The car was yesterday crushed by a heavy excavator and would be sold as metal pieces.

From The Nation

[londonthai]

To cut criminals' opportunity

don't see the reason here

[marshbags]

The Customs Department Wednesday crushed a Bt40 million Ferrari to metal scraps to prevent "car laundering".

The department's director-general Chawalit Satemethakul Wednesday presided over the destroying of an unclaimed Ferrari 456 GT car, which was seized from a Samut Prakan garage on June 28.

The car was found to have no key parts such as an engine's interface box, an antilock braking system (ABS) and its pump, a transmission interface box, car wiring systems, and an exhaust pipe, Chawalit said.

To cut criminals' opportunity the department decided to destroy the car instead of putting in an auction as usual, he said. The car was yesterday crushed by a heavy excavator and would be sold as metal pieces.

From The Nation

No offence B.B.B. and hope you don,t mind a typical contradiction press wise???????

Just read about it in the B.Post.

Seems they got a temp. stay of execution / distruction late on according to the B.Post.

Quote:-

B.Post....General news >> Wednesday September 26, 2007

IN Brief

OAG stops car demolition

SMUGGLED FERRARI: The Customs Department is at odds with the Office of the Auditor General after the OAG yesterday tried to prevent the department from destroying a 40-million-baht smuggled Ferrari.

The department wanted to destroy the seized car, but before the process started four OAG officials turned up and demanded customs officials abandon the plan, saying they had received a request from some people not to do so, a department source said.

Unquote.

For the completed brief

Ref. url:-

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/26Sep2007_news30.php

marshbags

Edited September 26, 2007 by marshbags

[torrenova]

Some people - huh ?

You don't think they are going to let 40m slide do you ?

[Donnyboy]

[marshbags]

Some people - huh ?

You don't think they are going to let 40m slide do you ?

It,s a pity they cannot auction it off and put the money to a good, deserving, legitimate cause.

40 mil would sure feed a few of the less well off and educate their children, along with providing support sponsorships.

This is what attracted me to read the O.P. along with the title.

My initial thoughts were " what a Fuffing Waste "

marshbags

Edited September 27, 2007 by marshbags

[mr_hippo]

From what I understand - the car was imported illegally, customs seized it to sell later at auction. The 'importer', for want of a better word, removed several essential components, possibly before it was shipped here before it was seized rendering the car 'useless'. Would you buy a useless car? Somchai buys the car for a knockdown price of a few million and then 'buys' the components off the importer. The now-complete car can now be registered and sold on for ?40 million. The profit is then shared between Somchai and the importer.

[Iolare]

Reduce it to scrap metal and it’s worth a few thousand baht shipped to Japan or China. Sell it at auction and it generates a princely sum for the govt., and remains an impressive economic generator for the economy. Think of the cost of insuring it, the ongoing license fees, the workers keeping it washed, pampered, mechanically sound, the gasoline sold, etc, etc. That car would be the equivalent of a few jobs to the ecomony all by itself.

[Plus]

Smuggling cars is illegal, why should the government help smugglers?

The scheme is pretty clear - they strip the cars rendering theim useless, Customs auction them, they legally buy them at sligtly higher than scrap metal prices, reinstall stripped parts and sell for 40 mil.

There a picture in the paper with a heavy bulldozer on top of what used to be a Ferrari, reportedly.

[baabaabobo]

Just had one of my staff tell me that they saw the Ferrari being squashed by a JCB on the TV news this morning.

R.I.P. (Rest In Pieces)

[mikethevigoman]

The Customs Department Wednesday crushed a Bt40 million Ferrari to metal scraps to prevent "car laundering".

The department's director-general Chawalit Satemethakul Wednesday presided over the destroying of an unclaimed Ferrari 456 GT car, which was seized from a Samut Prakan garage on June 28.

The car was found to have no key parts such as an engine's interface box, an antilock braking system (ABS) and its pump, a transmission interface box, car wiring systems, and an exhaust pipe, Chawalit said.

To cut criminals' opportunity the department decided to destroy the car instead of putting in an auction as usual, he said. The car was yesterday crushed by a heavy excavator and would be sold as metal pieces.

From The Nation

Isnt this typical, my wife has read the thai version and translates as such, the car was brought in by a customs officials son,he had immobilised the car as to devalue it for duty, then reinstalls in the car the ucu,ign etc and makes a huge profit,.somebody is pissed off and grasses him, ( no honor amongst theives comes to mind )..hence result, but what i find bizzare is why didnt they sell the car and put the money to use somewhere, in the uk the C+E would have had it,.if i live to be 150 i will never understand thais,.

[jumnien]

These mongrels do the same thing with motorcycles as well!

[solo siam]

The Customs Department Wednesday crushed a Bt40 million Ferrari to metal scraps to prevent "car laundering".

The department's director-general Chawalit Satemethakul Wednesday presided over the destroying of an unclaimed Ferrari 456 GT car, which was seized from a Samut Prakan garage on June 28.

The car was found to have no key parts such as an engine's interface box, an antilock braking system (ABS) and its pump, a transmission interface box, car wiring systems, and an exhaust pipe, Chawalit said.

To cut criminals' opportunity the department decided to destroy the car instead of putting in an auction as usual, he said. The car was yesterday crushed by a heavy excavator and would be sold as metal pieces.

From The Nation

Isnt this typical, my wife has read the thai version and translates as such, the car was brought in by a customs officials son,he had immobilised the car as to devalue it for duty, then reinstalls in the car the ucu,ign etc and makes a huge profit,.somebody is pissed off and grasses him, ( no honor amongst theives comes to mind )..hence result, but what i find bizzare is why didnt they sell the car and put the money to use somewhere, in the uk the C+E would have had it,.if i live to be 150 i will never understand thais,.

Got to be something wrong when a customs officials son can afford to buy an import a ferrari, wonder if questions are being asked about how he could afford to do this.

Glad they smashed it up though, I've heard that corruption is being tackled a bit better nowadays.

[torrenova]

But the Customs and Excise burn your "illegal" tobacco in the UK not sell it for good causes !

Like hel_l they do, you never see a C&E man buying tobacco at the corner shop do you ? :detective:

[jackspratt]

And how would you identify whether the man buying tobacco at the corner shop was a C&E man?

Do they stay in uniform when completing mundane domestic chores?

[londonthai]

this car could be sold at auction with a minimal bid half the value of the car (20mln) - if the auction was properly publiciesed there would probably be many interested and revenue generated. For an another million or two the car would be functional after installing the missing parts.

as to customs in the UK I have known a custom officer from the Heathrow airport selling cigarets to the shopkeepers and restaurants at a heavy discounted price well below the black market price. In some other European country I have known as well custom officers who would confiscate bootleg cigarets and not giving any papers prooving this confiscation.

Edited September 27, 2007 by londonthai

[TBWG]

Just had one of my staff tell me that they saw the Ferrari being squashed by a JCB on the TV news this morning.

R.I.P. (Rest In Pieces)

Oh well no problem, I'll just have to use another from my private collection

Now what colour shall I have today?

TBWG

[Jai Dee]

An excavator crumples a once-proud Ferrari into scrap metal to send an expensive message to car smugglers.

Source: The Nation - 27 September 2007

[smartecosse]

awesome pic

[lazeeboy]

awesome pic

laws are laws ,you break them what do you expect ,this should happen more often ,maybe next time could put a few drug dealers in side ,would draw a bigger crowd

[Tony Clifton]

Customs officials, boys in brown, kings of rackets.

[LivinLOS]

awesome pic

laws are laws ,you break them what do you expect ,this should happen more often ,maybe next time could put a few drug dealers in side ,would draw a bigger crowd

Laws are laws.. Fully support confiscation..

But why not take that valuable asset.. And use it to provide clean water, better teachers, more schools.. Even tho I may think the project is a bit miss guided, that would have been 10,000 of those 100 USD one laptop per child to give away.. Its a start !!

[Aussietraveller]

It does not make sense to me.

Why not operate customs as a business.

Get the car fixed up, cost probably 2 - 3 million Baht.

Sell it at Auction as a working model, get full price.

Much more profit to feed and educate the masses.... :D

Like the money would ever go to a cause like that.

The money would line the pockets of a few important people to keep them warm in the depths of the bangkok winter...

[dominique355]

awesome pic

laws are laws ,you break them what do you expect ,this should happen more often ,maybe next time could put a few drug dealers in side ,would draw a bigger crowd

But what exactly is illegal?

To import a car? No

To import a partly disabled car? No

To import parts for a car? No

To buy an imported and disabled car? No

To put imported parts into the car? No

To make a profit? No

Can someone explain to me, what was illegal?

If the custom authority have a loophole in their regulations about importing disabled cars, that's not illegal to use that loophole.

Could it be that the jealousy of some officials was the reason behind?

As the owner of the car I would sue them for THB 40 million plus another THB 40 million for cruelty

[steelepulse]

awesome pic

laws are laws ,you break them what do you expect ,this should happen more often ,maybe next time could put a few drug dealers in side ,would draw a bigger crowd

But what exactly is illegal?

To import a car? No

To import a partly disabled car? No

To import parts for a car? No

To buy an imported and disabled car? No

To put imported parts into the car? No

To make a profit? No

Can someone explain to me, what was illegal?

If the custom authority have a loophole in their regulations about importing disabled cars, that's not illegal to use that loophole.

Could it be that the jealousy of some officials was the reason behind?

As the owner of the car I would sue them for THB 40 million plus another THB 40 million for cruelty

I don't think the car was ever documented as being brought in.  That is what is illegal.  If it was documented and legal, I'm sure someone would have claimed the car, but the car was never claimed.

[ultime]

Video of the crush:

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=2iR8Z_W42sE

[JimsKnight]

If this happened in Shanghai the Ferrari would be auctioned, one reason the Chinese lead the Thais in business sense, although perhaps not corruption sense

[londonthai]

don't worry about chinese corruption sense - in shanghai the car would be auctioned and the money went to the private coffin of the first secretary

[bkk_mike]

Isn't the point simply that the smugglers are now trying to game the system.

Illegally import the car. Strip out several key expensive parts and hide them (probably before the car was smuggled in), fully expecting Customs to auction the car, which, because of the missing parts, would go for a relative song.

At this point they'd have a legit car, and would have paid a lot less than the proper import duty, and once the missing parts are replaced, one worth a lot more than they paid for it. (And customs would never get 40m for a Ferrari that doesn't run.)

Personally, customs did the right thing. In the short term, this will lose customs the income from the sale of one car. But in the longer term, maybe the smugglers will think twice before trying it again, and assuming it was smuggled in for a specific customer, he may well be thinking now that it would have been better to buy one legally. (And any other potential customers for the smugglers may be thinking the same.)

For those suggesting customs fix the car before selling it, if you heard that customs officials were ordering Ferrari parts from Modena, wouldn't you assume something corrupt was happening? This way, they send out a message.

[Sanpatong]

Heck, just use some used Camry bits to replace the missing parts and there you go.

(Might actually make the vehicle MORE reliable as there's less Italian parts. )