Arnold Schwarzenegger held at Munich airport over luxury watch

Customs officials reportedly charge actor €35,000 after alleged failure to declare item intended for climate charity auction

Arnold Schwarzenegger was briefly held by customs officers at Munich airport on Wednesday after allegedly failing to declare a €26,000 (£22,000) Audemars Piguet watch the Terminator star was planning to sell at an auction in aid of his climate crisis charity.

The Austrian-born actor and former governor of California, 76, was stopped at the airport for about three hours upon arrival from Los Angeles, according to the German tabloid Bild, which quoted customs officials.

Schwarzenegger was taken aside by officers who searched his luggage and found the watch, which the actor had allegedly not declared on his arrivals customs form.

A spokesperson for the main customs office in Munich said: “We have initiated criminal tax proceedings. The watch should have been registered because it is an import.” We

Illegalmexicant,

Did he learn nothing from Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction?

Crisps,

Now he’s going to be on some kind of watch list!

sleepyTonia, (edited )
@sleepyTonia@programming.dev avatar

Is this a German thing? I’ve traveled many times between Canada and the USA and never had to fill any customs form.
Edit: Boy oh boy. I thought Reddit was the toxic place, but can’t ask a damn question in here without getting slammed with downvotes?

nova_ad_vitum,

There’s a threshold for declaration at the US-Canada border too. Your odds of getting searched in a car at the canada-us border are low, though.

whereisk,

Most countries dislike people registered as tourists carrying products intended for commerce. In this instance it was intended for auctioning even with the proceedings going to a charitable org but maybe the German law doesn’t make a distinction (it seems an edge case that possibly wouldn’t have been codified).

Gazumi,

It’ll be back…

RizzRustbolt,

That’s who we need on Lemmy.

Because Margot Robbie is getting us nowhere.

Mrs_deWinter,

I’d be more upset if the headline read “Arnold Schwarzenegger commited tax fraud but was let through because he’s famous”

ThePantser,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

Poor guy, he fought so hard to stop the AI only to live long enough to see it’s rise anyways.

Muscle_Meteor,

This is the worst thing that has ever happened at a Munich airport…

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I’m going to assume you’re telling the truth and not look it up.

Bonehead,

I assume nothing and looked it up.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

It was a joke. That was an extremely well-known event which Steven Spielberg made a movie about and it was nominated for a bunch of Oscars.

Bonehead, (edited )

I've never seen the movie. I've only learned about this event today. You learn something new everyday.

Edit: The movie isn't even about the same event. I've learned 2 new things today...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_(2005_film)

surewhynotlem,

You learned something new too early in the day. Make sure you don’t learn anything else.

Tja,

I live like 500 meter from the memorial so I knew about it, and I’m sure it’s quite famous in Manchester, but I don’t think it’s an extremely well known event.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

When Steven Spielberg makes a movie about something, I’d say it’s pretty well known.

Tja,

I agree.

anonionfinelyminced,
anonionfinelyminced avatar

I seem to recall high end watches being a way to avoid carrying large amounts of cash across borders. Maybe even for money laundering (although that seems cumbersome).

People can carry tens or hundreds of thousands across borders in their luggage as personal wardrobe accessories. Once they arrive at their destination, find a dealer who will buy a watch for cash and they have loads of local currency without paying bank transaction fees or getting government haircuts.

Not that I think that's what's going on here, but it may be the media shining a spotlight on it for some reason.

crazyCat,

It’s better to wear the watch and jewelry if you’re having that intent.

LoremIpsumGenerator,

I’ll be back

JustZ,

Just have to run to an ATM.

LoremIpsumGenerator,

And buy some firepower.

Moghul,

offered to pay the charge with his credit card, but German customs rules require half of the charge to be paid in cash.

What a stupid fucking law.

He should’ve had that shit looked at though, especially being a public person.

CurlyMoustache,
@CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world avatar

Cash payment = you’re a criminal

Transporter_Room_3,
@Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website avatar

requires half to be paid in cash

Tell me you’re assisting with corruption without telling me you’re assisting with corruption.

There is absolutely no reason to charge half as cash unless you want physical money to conveniently forget to report.

Why do you think so many slightly shady businesses offer cash discounts? If your answer is “only card fees” then you may want to double check that last apple gift card you sent to grandma for her IRS bill actually made it to her.

I don’t care if it’s John down the street or a major world government. Someone somewhere saw this and thought “ooh, more money we can accidentally misreport”

Sure is a shame that the 17.5k never made it to it’s destination. That 15k could have come in handy. You never know when 10k could be useful for stopping terrorists that bring watches into the country. Hard to believe that 5k could be useful, but that 2k is going to be stretched as far as it can go.

geissi, (edited )

First of, I couldn’t find anything to corroborate the experience existence of such a rule.
The article might not be entirely accurate.

But even if it were true, you think customs officials just take your money without giving you a receipt?
And how would underreporting even work if the amount is exactly specified?

“Yes, we fined him for 20k, he paid 10k by card and here are the other 8k in cash.”

EldritchFeminity,

In the US, the way it works is that the cash part never makes it onto the report, though more commonly this happens when the police do a “no knock raid” on “the wrong house” and then empty the family safe. The contents of the safe simply never get reported as evidence or mysteriously disappear from the evidence room without being reported as missing, like a fairly decent portion of the drugs taken as evidence every year does.

geissi,

In this hypothetical scenario, if he paid by card you’d already have evidence that he was fined and what 50% of the amount was.
So the customs guys would have to bring in the same amount in cash. How would the cash part not make it into the report if there were a rule that there must be a cash part?

And once that is deposited in the bank, nobody can just walk in and make some of it disappear.

EldritchFeminity,

Yeah, after making that comment I realized the whole “customs gives you a receipt” thing, whereas the scenario I was talking about basically comes down to your word vs theirs, and what they write in their report. It’s a scenario with a lot less accountability than customs has.

geissi,

but German customs rules require half of the charge to be paid in cash.

What a stupid fucking law.

Never heard of such a rule.
Afaik the reason why he couldn’t pay with card was that the card reader was broken.

Moghul,

I have no idea, I just pulled that out of the article linked in the post.

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