The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) retrieved 26 out of 35 luxury cars that were reported to be stolen in Britain and blamed the crime on a group of car importers and dealers.
The impounded luxury cars include Porsche, BMW and Lamborghini cars. The legal action responded to the “Operation Titanium” by the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service and the Metropolitan Police of London.
Investigators found that a group of Thai owners of luxury car showrooms and a group of foreigners in Britain made up car rental contracts and export documents to send 35 luxury cars of 13 brands stolen in Britain by air from Heathrow airport to Singapore and then by sea to Thailand. The DSI already seized 26 luxury cars in the case.
Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said that in 2017 Britain asked the DSI to find the stolen cars and the occupants of 26 cars agreed to return the vehicles. The occupants of the nine other cars who had not returned them could be prosecuted for reception of stolen objects, he said.
The 35 stolen cars were estimated in Britain at 2.3 million pounds or about 100 million baht. In Thailand their price soared by three times to about 300 million baht, Mr Somsak said.
DSI director-general Trairit Temahiwong said the occupants bought the cars without knowing that they had been stolen and the DSI treated them as witnesses. The DSI was coordinating the return of the cars to Britain, he said. (TNA)
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