Don't you just hate it when your things get lost at the airport or even worse destroyed? Well it's getting even harder to trust them especially when they customs. The customs department destroyed a Bt 40 billion Ferrari. Apparently they detroyed it so as to avoid it getting to criminals who would take it apart and sell it.
Customs director-general Chawalit Satemethakul presided over destruction of the unclaimed Ferrari 456 GT, which was seized from a Samut Prakan garage on June 28. The car was found to lack key parts such as the engine's interface box, an anti-lock braking system (ABS) and its pump, a transmission, wiring systems, and an exhaust pipe, Chawalit said.
To cut the opportunity of criminals buying the Ferrari the department decided to destroy it as per a Finance Ministry policy, instead of putting it up for auction as usual, he said. The car was crushed by a heavy excavator and would be sold as scrap metal. Criminals were suspected of smuggling expensive cars into the country then removing key parts to devalue the vehicles, before allowing Customs officials to seize them.
With the seized cars usually auctioned later, "car-laundering" gangs then buy the cars at a cheap price then put the key parts back in vehicle and sell them for a hefty profit. "We want to send a message that those who involved in this can no longer take advantage or cheat others like they did before. If we find anymore cases like this, we'll destroy the evidence. We'll do our job without regard of who the people involved are," Chawalit said.
The Ferrari was worth between Bt35 million to Bt40 million but without the missing parts could have been sold for Bt4.6 million. An informed source said a person known only as "Yai" had declared himself as the car's owner and claimed to be the son of an executive of the Bank of Thailand.
The source said officials from the Auditor-General's Office turned up on Tuesday and demanded that the demolition plan be dropped, saying they had received a complaint from someone saying Customs was about to destroy "his" car. Customs withdrew the order to destroy the car to prevent a conflict with another state agency, the source said, but Chawalit insisted later that they should destroy the Ferrari since that was required by law.
Deputy Auditor-General Pisit Leelavachiropas said after Customs should have made better use of the smuggled Ferrari - rather than simply crushing it. Pisit asked why the depart-ment had arranged an auction to sell another Ferrari in a similar condition in July, but opted to destroy the car yesterday. "The office is not against the destruction of the car but wants the department to make better use of them, such as giving it to a vocational college so students can study the vehicle, or dumping it in the sea to make an artificial reef," he said.