BOC to again auction off 4 smuggled, luxury cars on June 15

Bureau of Customs. (File photo from Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines—Despite failing again to sell four smuggled cars on Thursday (June 9), the Bureau of Customs (BOC) will attempt once more to auction them off just days later on June 15 to raise at least P22.4 million in additional revenues.

In a June 9 notice, district collector Romeo Allan Rosales, of the BOC’s Manila International Container Port (MICP), said interested bidders can inspect the smuggled 2006 Lamborghini Vin, confiscated back in 2016, at the Pacific Roadlink Logistics Inc. (PRLI) facility in Angat, Bulacan on June 14.

Three other smuggled used cars — to be auctioned off for the fifth time — can be inspected at the Port Users Confederation (PUC) grounds in South Harbor at Port Area in Manila on June 13.

The floor prices were kept at P10.4 million for the Lamborghini; P10.5 million for the 2008 Ferrari Scuderia 430; P809,082.97 for the 2001 Porsche Boxster; as well as P783,049.46 for the Mercedes-Benz E220.

The BOC and the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) at the June 9 auction declared a failed bidding for these four luxury cars due to lack of qualified bidders.

Last April, the BOC generated P6.3 million from the sale of three seized luxury vehicles — a brand-new Mercedes-Benz G500 sport utility vehicle (SUV) at P4.8 million; a used 2001 Mercedes-Benz SLK55 at P775,000; and an also used 2001 Mercedes-Benz SLK350 at P730,000.

The two used Mercedes-Benz cars sold in April fetched higher bids than their minimum bid prices, which were half of the floor prices when they were first put on the auction block in December 2021, and then when offered again last January.

Before the pandemic struck, the BOC had been destroying smuggled vehicles in public to supposedly show that the government was serious in its anti-smuggling campaign. But in late 2021, the government changed its tack and instead auctioned off hot cars in a bid to raise more revenues.

TSB