Theft || Portuguese owners of BMW, Audi and Mercedes cars are being warned of a crime-ring stealing luxury vehicles and shipping them off to Paraguay – where they are quickly sold at knockdown prices.
The warning has come from Paraguayan police who last week detected 200 cars brought into the country in containers – a number with the personal effects of the original owners still in them.
Talking to reporters, a spokesman for Interpol said the luxury vehicles could easily fetch €40,000 to €58,000 in Paraguay.
Also involved in the scam are top-of-the-range motorbikes.
The vehicles are loaded in containers at Portuguese and Spanish ports, said the spokesman – and almost always ‘declared’ as personal belongings.
One of the reasons the scam is so popular is that document checks in Paraguay are lax, to say the least, and “legalisation” can be achieved on the showing of a bogus receipt and the simple payment of port dues.
Top-of-the-range car owners warned to be on the alert for crime-ring
