'Pay tax to avoid legal woes'

However, he said, importers and distributors will most certainly face criminal proceedings because their crime cannot be settled out of court.

An informed source at the DSI disclosed that some 40 companies had brought super cars into Thailand illegally, but most of these were paper companies. 

“As soon as problems arise, these paper companies get abandoned. There are some 30 firms in this group,” the source said. 

Most of these smuggled cars are sent in via Bangkok and Laem Chabang ports, the source said, adding that the smugglers usually exercised their connections with powerful politicians or their relatives to get the vehicles through customs. 

“Some of these politicians are based in Nakhon Pathom, Pak Nam, Kamphaeng Phet and Thon Buri,” the source said, adding that these politicians reportedly sought between Bt500,000 and Bt1 million per vehicle for the favour.

Tarit said he suspected that such illegal activities caused the country massive financial damage in lost revenue. 

“Luxury cars are subject to a 200-per-cent tax, but if the importers can successfully declare them as reassembled vehicles, then the tax is just 30 per cent,” he said.

He added that there were up to 5,832 vehicles registered as reassembled cars in Thailand. 

The Cabinet, in fact, passed a resolution to ban the registration of vehicles reassembled from auto parts in Thailand since mid-2012.

However, this registration continues because the Land Transport Department has yet to issue a regulation implementing the ban. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a DSI official handling cases in the South said some luxury cars were also smuggled in from Malaysia. 

“Sometimes, the vehicles are put in empty containers returning to Thailand from Malaysia. Sometimes, Malaysians drive the luxury cars to Thailand openly and declare them as missing vehicles at home. These cars can be used in Thailand under documents issued for old or badly damaged vehicles,” this official said. 

He said users of such luxury cars in the three southernmost provinces were senior government officials. “That’s why no one wants to dig deep,” he said. 

 

Smuggled cars 

The case of smuggled luxury cars returned to the media spotlight after nobody stepped forward to claim ownership of super cars that were destroyed in a fire last week. Hence suspicions began to emerge and the DSI stepped in to take a closer look, when it learned that one of the Lamborghinis in the lot was on its watch-list of smuggled vehicles. 

Meanwhile, National Anti-Corruption Commission member Pakdee Photisiri said yesterday he was waiting for NACC head Panthep Klanarongran to approve the setting up of a subcommittee to look into the smuggled vehicles. “I proposed its establishment after the Office of the Public Sector Anti Corruption Commission forwarded evidence involving some tax-evading vehicles to the NACC,” he said. 

Industry permanent secretary Witoon Simachokedee instructed the Thai Industrial Standards Institute to check whether any importer had avoided its inspections. “Even reassembled vehicles must be inspected,” TISI deputy secretary-general Wirat Archa-apisit said. 

He said any operator who failed to submit the vehicles for inspection would face a maximum fine of Bt1 million and/or a jail term of up to two years.