Ferrari stolen in Italy 18 years ago recovered at Peace Bridge, U.S. Attorney looking for owner

At the very minimum, strange. The car was stolen in Imola, which is ~2h:30min from Bergamo, where the family resides. An accident would be a possibility during that trip and thus it was (at least in my opinion) risky to drive such a rare car without insurance.

 

This is the gentleman. Someone could invite him to participate on this thread

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paolo-provenzi/?originalSubdomain=it

 

I’ll post here rather than adding to other threads, but regarding insurance and ownership one of my closest friends is a UK exporter of commercial vehicles and plant machinery, and just want to offer an experience he went through relating to ownership, at least regarding UK and European law.

He was victim of theft about 8-10 yrs ago , he was scammed where after meeting foreign buyer at UK port with 2 £40k JCBs and 1 £15k HGV ( 1 JCB was inside the HGV). 20 mins after being paid, he ‘magically’ appeared in a branch of his bank 250 miles away to cancel the transaction, when he was notified with follow up call from bank, he was only able to track down the HGV with 1 JCB inside and remove it from ship before it left port, his insurance and bank refused to accept any responsibility and had to take it on the chin for a hit of £40k.

Fast forward 4 yrs and the police called to say Interpol had tracked a brand new Claas tractor with a at the time hidden factory fitted tracker to a shed in Poland with about 20 other stolen machines and vehicles inside, one of which they believed was his and would he like to collect it as he was the legal owner, provided he could prove with purchase invoice he was legal owner.

It cost him about £5k in fuel and ferry crossings to go with another driver (added security) to collect from ‘custodian’ in Poland with help from local police, he expected to collect it with sand or nuts and bolts in the engine, but all was good and sold it when home for £35k so the experience cost him £10k overall, but a massive lesson learned.

I doubt there will be a speedy resolution here as a lot of money is at play, but I’m sure there will be a lot of billed hours by lawyers on both sides.

 

I could be mistaken, but from information in one of the other threads, it appears as though the US buyer - Mohammed Alsaloussi - may have owned, or at least been associated with the Canadian corporation - Ikonic Collection - that "owned" the F50. Due to the difference in admissibility laws between Canada (15 years) and the US (25 years), there have been several times where US buyers will purchase a car through a Canadian entity to circumvent US import laws (R34 Skylines were a common one).

Do we know for certain that the Motorcarlease car is 105810? I'm not so sure... There are a few Euro-spec F50s in Montreal...

 

Screenshots I posted from Instagram are of a different F50 sold by CAR in 2019, though it appears the car in question is posted in a Oct. 2019 Instagram post.

Some color from CAR:

 

No idea about Japan (but I suspect the Japanese export document process only confirms that the shipper has Japanese title to the car). I have imported 3 cars from Dubai to Canada over the years; Dubai authorities simply check the serial number against the Dubai title document and none were the subject of a meaningful serial number check when they arrived in Canada, so to me that Instagram post means nothing.

As for the victim not looking, well, that comment speaks for itself.

If an insurer did pay for the car, to my understanding of Italian Law, an innocent buyer might be able to be awarded title by a Court following a purchase 15-20 years after the theft, but only in a contest with the insurance company (and may require the subsequent buyer being the victim of subterfuge, such as a duplicate serial number).

If the original victim was not insured, to my knowledge, Italian law will not protect an innocent buyer.

In common law jurisdictions such as New York you can never obtain title to stolen goods despite being an innocent purchaser.

 

I don't know how cars are insured in Italy, but in France, you have a choice of options, going from the bare minimum to full coverage. Insurance is mandatory, but you might opt for only the bare minimum: "damage to other parties' cars and persons" coverage ("Tiers-collision"), you might opt for "full coverage" but with fixed value, or with "appraised value" (in that case, the car should, of course, be appraised by an expert every two years, etc...) and sometimes you might not opt for "Theft coverage".
Perhaps the car WAS insured, but only to a minimum, not for "Theft"?

Rgds

 

Another Ferrari funneled out of Europe and into Japan, only to re emerge years later. There is a pattern forming here! Clearly a busy network had been established in the 90s and beyond, Many of them from Italy did not have insurance for some strange reason.

With the internet spreading its wings to the furthest most reaches of the planet and only ever getting even more detailed, then more and more of these lost examples will come to light now.

You would think one of the leading players such as carfax would consolidate with other agencies to provide global coverage.

 

Six F50s (103794, 105235, 105810, 106465, 106630, 107105) were stolen in Italy in the early years and at least three of these six then somehow ended up in Japan. Not all were recovered.
As for stolen F40s (about 30 units!) please see my contributions in the various Stolen F40 threads. A large number went via Marbella/Spain and/or Dubai to Japan.
I have legal papers and court documents showing that several groups/organized crime were responsible for all that. One group stole more than 150 sportscars within very few years, all in northern Italy but also in the South of France, and in Lugano and Geneva (Switzerland).

Marcel Massini

 

It's basically the same in Italy. So perhaps I got too far on my supposition, perhaps the gentleman had accident insurance but not theft insurance. Fair enough.

Or, the F50 was not listed on the assets declaration, which is pretty common in Italy.

 

Very interesting. Care to share where these groups were from? Is it correct to assume that the Japanese buying these cars were also victims?

The fact that most of these cars were stolen in Northern Italy is very interesting. I think I know the reasons but that's another completely different topic.

 

Are/were stolen items tax deductable in Italy?

 

Seems like an open and shut case. Hard to believe the buyer is wasting his resources in court against the true owner instead of the seller he paid.

 

Sometimes lawyers give you wrong advice. There are even people that don't even know where Italy is.

Marcel Massini

 

I would venture to say the seller and the buyer's $1.4 mil are long gone. From the article this was an "online" transaction. I wonder if he sent the money via Western Union.

 

There are "good faith buyer" laws too, that protect innocent buyers in transactions. Current owner may have insurance too that requires some adjustment or is pushing for a court ruling before paying out.

 

Would be a first. Car was legally registred so it's in accordance to the law of the country, so buyer has every right to get it and due deligence as far as I know is not a legal requirement so no one can actually be accountable for the lack of it.

Only solution here is to have the car auctioned off, cleaned off the theft status and money split for both. No one wins but no one really totally loses either.

Stolen cars are all around, stolen parts are even worse, it's the result of lack of structure and laws. I was on the otherside of this not that long ago, decade or so, somehow my car was registred in Germany of all places, found out of pure luck by a friend, case was put to the owner, was not compliant even with partial reimbursement of the value, neither in trying to uncover, Germany police was comically racist, had to follow the only recourse of the law that was left, that is weirdly criminal and totally legal all at the same time.

If that f50 ever comes to Europe it will be only straight way chance of the italian ever get his hands on his car.

 

Not sure how much "Good faith" the buyer had. It sounds like the car was priced way below the market.

 

See post #16.

Marcel Massini

 

In March 2019 it was being offered ex Japan for €1.65m. By a broker you would not want to engage with.

 

Appears so. CNN says that Ikonick Collections, Ltd is a holding company for Mohammed Alsaloussi's car collection:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/19/us/ferrari-ownership-lawsuit-trnd/index.html

What month and year was the F50 built? The 25 year importation law for the US to bypass DOT compliance requires 25 years to the month of the build, not just the year. We're already in 2021 and CNN says it was a 1996 year so I guess it wasn't a holding company to bypass the 25 year law by driving on Canadian plates.

 

Wonder why, in that picture, the car is wearing the front license plate of the local official Ferrari dealer.

 

I have a friend who is a Nigerian Prince I can introduce him to.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Quote:
"During their inspection, they saw that the rivets holding the car's vehicle identification number (VIN) plate were covered with a black, tar-like substance that was not consistent with factory standards."

Here.

Marcel Massini

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The car in question was completed 11 July 1996.

Marcel Massini