No: 17264 Friday, June 23, 2017

18

I n t e r n a t i o n a l

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2017

BANGKOK:  Dozens of supercars including Lamborghinis,

Porsches and BMWs have been stolen from the streets of

Britain and shipped to Thailand in a complex scam that police

from both countries are now rushing to dismantle. Sparked by

a British request to retrieve the lifted vehicles, detectives in

Bangkok have launched a series of raids against dealers in

recent weeks. More than 120 top-of-the-range sports cars

have since been seized, including some identified as stolen

from Britain.

Thai investigators say they have also uncovered an array of

scams and loopholes that dealers and corrupt customs offi-

cials exploit to circumvent eye-watering taxes the Southeast

Asian kingdom places on supercars-usually around 328 per-

cent. “More than 1,000 supercars are implicated in the under-

valuing scam,” Lieutenant Colonel Korawat Panprapakorn, the

officer leading the investigation said. “This practice has been

going on for a long time.” Britain is the most popular source

for luxury car imports to Thailand because both countries

drive on the left hand side of the road. While Thailand’s econo-

my has been slumping in recent years, its billionaire class is

doing just fine and gleaming supercars remain a common

sight on the streets of Bangkok-even if they spend much of

their time crawling along the city’s gridlocked streets.

Name change 

Lamborghinis appear to have been a top choice, making

up 32 of the 122 seized vehicles, according to Thailand’s

Department for Special Investigations (DSI). The tax evasion

scams ranged from impressively creative to bizarrely simple.

At least two vehicles were allegedly shipped over from the UK

in parts and then assembled in Thailand to avoid the triple tax

rate. Eight Lamborghinis were simply declared as being the

cheaper Gallardo model when they were in fact the much

more expensive Aventador.  

Customs officers either did not notice or deliberately

turned a blind eye to the easy-to-spot error. But in the vast

majority of cases dealers under-declared the true value of the

cars, often by $10,000s, to pay less tax, the DSI said, adding

some 30 businesses were now being investigated.  The out-

right stolen vehicles were whisked abroad through a different

scam. Sources with knowledge of the investigation in Britain

say most of the cars were bought on finance and shipped to

Thailand. When the vehicles were at sea, the owners reported

them stolen and stopped paying the monthly repayments. 

Grand theft auto 

Britain’s National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service con-

firmed it was working with Thai police to track the vehicles.  “To

date 38 (stolen) UK vehicles, identified by their engine and chas-

sis numbers and valued at over £2.3 million have been import-

ed into Thailand,” the agency said. “Seven of the thirty-eight

vehicles identified were seized by the DSI from a used car deal-

ership in Bangkok.” Those seven were found during a police raid

on STT Auto in Bangkok’s Ekkamai district, a suburb known for

its glitzy nightclubs, restaurants and luxury condos. The dealer-

ship’s owner Indharasak Techaterasiri-who goes by the nick-

name “Boy Unity” and is well-known on the luxury car circuit-

told AFP he was baffled that the seven cars were reported

stolen. He said he imports 500-600 luxury vehicles a year from

Britain and that his shipping agent always checks the UK’s vehi-

cle registry databases to ensure the cars are not stolen. None of

the seven-two Lamborghinis, two BMW M4s, two Porsche

Boxters and a Nissan GTR-came up as stolen, which would make

sense if they were only reported after they left port.  —AFP 

Brits and Thais race to close 

stolen supercar pipeline

1,000 supercars implicated in undervaluing scam

BANGKOK: This photograph shows a sports car through the windows of a Bangkok dealership accused of selling stolen

cars from the streets of Britain. — AFP

Japan politician retracts 

starve North Koreans call

TOKYO: A Japanese governor has retracted his call for North

Koreans to be “starved to death” if Pyongyang were to target

his region with atomic weapons, a local official said yesterday.

Masanori Tanimoto, the head of Ishikawa prefecture, walked

back on a suggestion that food supplies to the nuclear-armed

North should be cut off it were to lob a missile at a civilian

atomic power plant in his region in central Japan. Tanimoto

made the comment during a town hall meeting Wednesday.

“The governor retracted his remark today,” an Ishikawa gov-

ernment spokesman said. “He

told reporters that we should

respect human lives,” he added,

referring to Tanimoto. Chronic

food shortages and malnutrition

are widespread in North Korea,

according to the UN.  The country

has also periodically been hit by

famine, and hundreds of thou-

sands of people died-estimates

range into the millions-in the

mid-1990s. Tanimoto insisted

however that efforts to bring

about regime change in North

Korea must be “effective”.

“We need to help create a situ-

ation where the regime would

collapse from within even though

such a situation may impact the

people of North Korea,” he said

yesterday, according to Kyodo

News agency. Municipalities

across Japan have been conducting evacuation drills in

response to a possible North Korean attack. Despite interna-

tional condemnation and sanctions, North Korea has a small

nuclear arsenal and is developing nuclear-capable ballistic mis-

siles that threaten Japan and South Korea-and one day could

even hit some US cities. —AFP 

TOKYO: The picture

shows Japan’s governor

of Ishikawa prefecture

Masanori Tanimoto. 

—AFP

SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday called

US President Donald Trump a “psy-

chopath” as tensions soar following the

death of American student Otto

Warmbier, who was evacuated in a

coma from North Korean detention last

week. Pyongyang’s official Rodong

Sinmun newspaper said the US presi-

dent was in a “tough situation” at home

and claimed he was toying with the

idea of a preemptive strike on North

Korea to divert attention from a domes-

tic political crisis. “South Korea must

realise that following psychopath

Trump...will only lead to disaster,” an

editorial carried by the paper said.

A series of atomic tests and missile

launches since last year have ratcheted

up tensions on the Korean peninsula,

and Warmbier’s death has further

strained relations between Pyongyang

and Washington. Trump slammed the

“brutal regime” in Pyongyang, and said

he was determined to “prevent such

tragedies from befalling innocent peo-

ple at the hands of regimes that do not

respect the rule of law or basic human

decency.” His language was echoed by

South Korean President Moon Jae-In,

who said in an interview ahead of a

White House visit next week that North

Korea bears responsibility for the stu-

dent’s death.

“I believe we must now have the

perception that North Korea is an irra-

tional regime,” Moon told CBS televi-

sion’s “This Morning.” Moon, a centre-

left politician who was sworn in last

month after a landslide election win,

favors engagement with the North,

rather than the hardline stance taken by

his ousted conservative predecessor

Park Geun-Hye. Washington has also

stepped up its muscle-flexing in the

region, flying two B-1 bombers over the

Korean peninsula Tuesday in a planned

training mission with Japan and South

Korea as its latest show of force. —AFP 

N Korea calls Trump a ‘psychopath’

Australia’s military resumes 

air operations over Syria

SYDNEY:  Australia yesterday lifted a suspension on military

air missions over Syria imposed after the shooting down of a

Syrian jet by US forces. Canberra temporarily halted flights on

Tuesday after a spike in tensions between the US and Russia,

which warned it, would track coalition aircraft in Syria as

potential “targets”. Moscow also halted a military hotline with

Washington over the incident, intended to prevent confronta-

tions in Syria’s crowded air space.

Australia defense ministry said in a statement the suspen-

sion was “a precautionary measure to allow the coalition to

assess the operational risk”. “The suspension has since been

lifted,” it added. The United States moved quickly to contain

an escalation of the situation after the jet was downed on

Sunday evening when regime forces targeted the US-backed

Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish

fighters battling IS. A top US general said the country would

work to relaunch the “deconfliction” hotline established in

2015, after Russia said Washington had failed to use the line-a

vital incident-prevention tool-before targeting the plane near

Raqa. Australia is part of the coalition fighting the Islamic

State group in Iraq and in late 2015 extended air operations

into Syria, with a total of 780 defense personnel based in the

Middle East. —AFP 

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