Seized luxury vehicles nets ten of millions at auction
An auction of prestige cars formerly owned by the vice president of Equatorial Guinea raked in more than $27 million on Sunday and outperformed expectations for the sale.
The 25 lots sold by auction house Bonhams included a white-and-cream 2014 Lamborghini Veneno roadster that cost the buyer about $8.4 million, comprising a 15% premium for the auction house but with potential taxes still to be added.
The sale took place in a 12th-Century abbey, a former chateau overlooking Lake Geneva that serves as the Bonmont Golf and Country Club's clubhouse.
A picture taken on September 28, 2019 at the Bonmont Abbey in Cheserex, western Switzerland shows a 2015 Koenigsegg One:1 model car during an auction preview by sales house Bonhams of sport cars belonging to the son of the Equatorial Guinea's Preside
The proceeds are expected to fund unspecified charity or social programs to benefit the people of oil-rich African nation, which was a former Spanish colony. More than three-fourths of the population lives in poverty, even though nation sits on tremendous oil reserves.
The auction comes after the Geneva prosecutor’s office announced in February it had closed a case against Teodoroin Nguema Obiang Mangue, the son of the country’s president, Teodoro Obiang, and two others who were being investigated for money laundering and mismanagement of public assets. Teodorin is the son of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled the west African state for four decades. Rights groups have labeled his administration one the world’s most corrupt, according to Reuters.
Twenty-six Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, and Rolls-Royces owned by Teodorin, the vice president and former agriculture minister, were part of the lot sold at Bonmont golf and country club in the Swiss village of Cheserex, 19 miles from Geneva, on Sunday, according to Reuters.
Swiss authorities seized the cars and ordered the sequestration of a yacht in 2016.
The yacht was released in the arrangement announced in February, under which Equatorial Guinea agreed to pay Geneva authorities 1.3 million Swiss francs “notably to cover procedural costs,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The cars were available for inspection for two days prior to the auction.
The white 2014 Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, had the initials TNO painted on the hood and gull-wing doors, which fetched the top sale had been drawing interest since Friday. One of only nine made, it has 201 miles on the odometer, and was being inspected Friday by a potential German bidder kneeling in the grass.
“It is the first time such a car is being offered at public auction,” James Knight, Group Chairman of Bonhams Motoring Department who will conduct the auction, told Reuters before the auction. “Buyers want a car to have had few owners, a service handbook and a low odometer reading.”
A picture taken on September 28, 2019 at the Bonmont Abbey in Cheserex, western Switzerland shows a McLaren P1 coupe model car during an auction preview by sales house Bonhams of sport cars belonging to the son of the Equatorial Guinea's President. -
Other cars sold at the Domaine de Bonmmont golf club on the edge of Geneva included a yellow 2003 Ferrari Enzo for 3.1 million Swiss francs, and a 2015 Koenigsegg One:1 that fetched 4.6 million Swiss francs.
An armored 1998 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur limousine described as being “perfect for someone with enemies sold for 86,250 Swiss francs. The limo was offered in dismantled condition and will require extensive work to get it running.
The Equatorial Guinea president’s son, who is also a vice president, has been ensnared in legal trouble elsewhere. Last year, Brazilian officials said $16 million in undeclared cash and luxury watches that were seized from a delegation he led may have been part of an effort to launder money embezzled from the country’s government. And a Paris court in 2017 convicted the son of embezzling millions of dollars in public money, although the case has been appealed.
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The Geneva prosecutor’s office in February cited rules allowing prosecutors to close cases in which the person under investigation had “repaired the damage or done everything that could have been expected of him or her to make up for the wrong that was caused.”
The investigation involved authorities in the United States, the Cayman Islands, France, Monaco, Denmark, the Netherlands and the Marshall Islands.
This report contains material from the Associated Press and Reuters.