Customs Bureau now getting tough on Grey Car Importers

[The understudy]

Good Afternoon HHAD friends and fellas,

It's News all over the Thai Boulvard Presses Business Section like The Thai Rath, Daily News and Khom Chad Ruek etc.
Which all are quoting Thai Police Chief, Mr. Darmaphong: Local Grey Market Car Importers are using massive import tax evasion schemes which leaves the nation of Billions of lost revenue. So the Finance and Customs Ministry and Department had send known cases over to the DSI (Department of Special Investigations) to investigate these matters. And the revenues dept. Is trying to toughen up rules how to import Cars from abroad. These Cars are all in the luxury Car segment. So for a certain clientel who prefer to buy those Cars.
So you guys might what Kind of tax evasion schemes are The Grey Car Importers using.
One popular scheme is the Thai Student/Thai Resident Scheme where they wish to bring back their Cars that they drive in Australia, UK or elsewhere. Those importers have have Moles in the host Country with lists of Thai Students Studying in the UK, Germany, etc. The firms use these Names in the Import customs form to state that they want import their Car which they had when they studied in the respected country. The Moles of the Grey importers have allready bought up a number of luxury Cars top notch equipped supposedly driven by Thai Students from Middle lower to upper middle class families during their study time but in reality those Cars are Brand New to have only the names fill in the forms & ready to be shipped double in digit numbers every months. After four to five weeks by Sea freight after arriving @ Laem Chabang Port these cars have their very own customs officer which gets rarely rotated to waive through all cars from that Grey importer.
For example a Ferrari brand new equipped to the teeth cost 16 Million and the owner through this and other schemes only has to pay 2 Million in import taxes where actually 4 to 7 Million taxes has to be paid.
In an on air interwiev the highest chief of Benz Thonglor (Thailands official Mercedes Benz importer for over 30 to 40 years) a couple hours ago told the radio interwiever. That the Grey Market here in Thailand is huge. The initial investments are quiet substantial but the returns and Profits are enormous. You have to be a High So to establish a Car import business. If you wanna engage to Sell Cars to High So's as well.
The interviewer: If in your case a High So sell to High So why would a High So evade import taxes?
His answers: "A High So with Wits and guts to evade taxes is a truly rich High So.
Do to the lower import taxes the Gray importers pay, They can undercut the official Importes prices by a large margin causing the Official Importers of Mercedes Benz, BMW, Porsche, Audi, Benltley etc. mojir headaches. Some Car Companies like Mercedes Benz and BMW are refusing to service Grey Imports or don't give them the preferrential Service a buyer of officially imported Cars would have. Plus they need to pay for spare parts when it's not available and needs to be backordered whiie an official buyer can order em for free.
The Car Companies seek help from the Government to toughen up Import Rules and regulations don't allow any exemptions and fill loopholes within the rules. The Thai Government promises to do something but thesse are only Lips services without any substance. As import rules are now littered with exemptions and loopholes in the language it's free to anyones interpretations.
With one Big Wig finally Complaining about Grey Imports and lost revenue and cases already send to the DSI. Letz hope something changes for the better.
But we should not be not so optimistic or naive about it. According to the head Chief Benz Thonglor.
(the head honcho or the El Cahuna El Boss) The gray Auto importers when found guilty. The Grey Car Market will industry will lay low for a while sell their Cars at prices similar to official import prices until the dust settles and Thai peops forget things (we Thais do have a very short memory or turn on one eye blind!).

And what do you guys thioughts on grey Car Imports? Me The understud wanna hear, listen and read all of ya opinions. Ahhh yeah what do skool of thoughts aboot the Thai High So way on thought boot taxes.
I'm waitin to all your answers and have a healthy discussion started.

Your's The understudy (the One & only)

[STEVE G]

I don't know if this goes on in Thailand but when I was living in Indonesia many "grey import" cars were actually stolen car that had been shipped out in containers. Once they arrived, bribes were paid to the relevant authorities to legally register them. That went some way to explaining why so many people were driving Mercedes in a country with 100% import tax on luxury cars.