Luxury car stolen in Germany seized in Malta

A week of intensive and intricate investigations have led the Customs enforcement unit to a stolen luxury Mercedes SL 500 that was brought into Malta from Sicily on September 23.

The vehicle was stolen from Germany.

Customs officials reckon the top of the range car is worth Lm75,000. It sports a Swiss number plate and was to be exported to Dubai.

A 26-year-old Bulgarian woman arrived in Malta on board the catamaran San Gwann from Sicily, telling Customs officials she had authorisation to drive the Mercedes, registered under the name of a company in Bulgaria.

The officials, who allowed the woman and the car ashore, noticed however a number of loose ends in the woman's story and passed on the details to the Customs enforcement unit.

The unit went into action immediately, finding that the woman had already left the island and that before she left Malta she had made arrangements with a shipping agent here to have the car shipped in a container to Dubai.

The Customs unit found out that all the documentation the woman passed on to the shipping agent was fake.

The car has now been impounded by the CEU and will be passed on to the stolen vehicles section of the police who will inform Interpol about the case. Interpol will, in turn, make arrangements to inform the insurance firm that covered the car.