The great car fire scandal of 2013. And yes, I am awesome at Photoshop. Thank you for asking.
The Department of Special Investigations (DSI) is proving surprisingly (suspiciously?) energetic in its pursuit of Thai citizens who have either imported or purchased luxury vehicles without paying the proper import fees.
This current purge began last week, when a truck transporting six luxury cars unexpectedly caught fire in Nakhon Ratchasima. In the wake of the fire, police discovered that the cars had been imported illegally. As it turns out, car owners had retrofitted their high-end transports with after-market fuel systems, which were then swapped out for the cars’ original fuel systems once they had been transported into Thailand. This allowed the importers to claim that the cars were assembled in Thailand, rather than imported in one piece, thereby putting them in a separate tax category.
The week since that discovery has been a busy one for the DSI. Presently, the organization is in the process of inspecting 548 high-end vehicles for evidence of tax fraud. Today, via the National News Bureau of Thailand, the DSI announced that it would present the results of this investigation within the week.
However, it looks like even those who have purchased these legally questionable cars are likely to remain a safe distance from the long arm of the law.
As reported by the Nation, the DSI is offering vehicle owners an “out” in the form of plausible deniability. If luxury car owners can prove that they purchased their vehicles without knowledge of those vehicles’ elicit pasts, then the force of the DSI’s ire will fall on the importers, not the vehicle owners themselves.
In fact, vehicle owners will be allowed to sue the dealers from whom they bought their suspicious super-cars.
Owners of luxury cars (there must be a couple of you among the Coconuts Bangkok readership, right?) are urged to voluntarily bring their vehicles in to the DSI for inspection before June 18.
Want more of the luxury car crackdown of 2013?:
DSI picks up a lead in burnt super-car scandal
DSI to luxury car owners: ‘Keep your documents handy’
Crackdown continues with seizure of liquor and luxury cars
Two thousand luxury cars are hidden at Chon Buri port
