DSI ready to name buyers of super cars
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Tarit says owners will be given a chance to come forward first
Politicians, their relatives, government officials and celebrities are among the owners of the luxury cars suspected to be involved in a tax-evasion scandal.
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has said that it will first target vehicles that have been declared as locally reassembled and are worth more than Bt4 million in the market. “There are about 145 such vehicles,” DSI chief Tarit Pengdith said yesterday.
Recently, suspicion has arisen that some of these vehicles have been wrongly declared as locally reassembled in a move to avoid full taxation, especially as inspection at reassembling facilities revealed that the units have neither the technology nor the equipment to put together super cars.
Tarit said 6,862 vehicles have been registered as reassembled in Thailand to date, adding that relevant authorities will soon be releasing a list of names of people who allegedly own these cars.
“We will first allow them to come forward on a voluntary basis, but if they ignore us, we will issue a summons,” he said.
Tarit said he believed that owners of about 20 per cent of the vehicles under the suspicion might possibly have bought their cars correctly. “For such cases, six relevant authorities will simply review the evidence and put their cases to rest,” he said.
Tarit added that the authorities will also focus on taking action against the car smugglers and buyers are advised to hand over their vehicles to avoid legal problems. He went on to say that the buyers can sue the sellers for compensation.
He said that the DSI will be checking its list of super car owners against that of the Land Transport Department’s on Monday before alerting the owners of the 145 reassembled vehicles suspected of being involved in tax evasion.
Tarit said he had already told the Customs Department to block anybody trying to drive a reassembled car out of the country.
“This measure is needed to ensure that nobody will try to hide his or her cars in a neighbouring country,” he said. An informed source disclosed that records showed some individuals owned dozens of these reassembled vehicles.
The list shows, for instance, that a person named Phanwasin Wilaikaew owns 76 cars including BMW, Benz and Volkswagen. Trongjai Issarapanich owns 48 vehicles including Lexus, Mini Cooper and Volkswagen. Nanthaporn Puengprayoon owns 58, including Land Rover, BMW and Benz. Worawut Asavachok owns 45 reassembled vehicles. The Laksameeseths own 62 vehicles.
Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) secretary-general Seehanat Prayoonrat said his agency had previously investigated seven or eight importers of luxury cars before.
“The amount of money they transferred to an overseas account was suspiciously large,” he said, adding that if asked, his agency would be happy to provide further information to the DSI and the national police.
