Thread by @ianjamesyoung70

So, it turns out BMW is chasing smugglers clear across Canada after they lease/buy luxe cars in Ontario, then immediately send them to Vancouver to load onto ships for China without paying. It's insane, with bailiffs hunting cars via GPS scmp.com/news/china/mon… via @scmpnews

Particularly shocking: the ease with which bogus buyers get C$100,000+ cars, based on fake credentials, bank accs, jobs. The IDs dissolve under cursory scrutiny, by then car & buyer are gone. Here's a fake work permit: identical #, used by 2 buyers in SAME DEALERSHIP a week apart

In one of the court cases I examined, a $114K BMW M5 was given to 19-yr-old, purportedly a karaoke bar manager earning $72K/yr + $30K in 'family support'. But his job & work permit were fake. He admitted this to me after I tracked him down: he's a Chinese int student

In case after case, BMW dealers were duped by such fakery. When payments failed, investigators would try to track the cars with onboard GPS, pinging them in Richmond warehouses filled 'bumper to bumper' with beamers. But seizure orders sometimes came too late.

Anyway, read all about it. Alt headline: Smugglers fast, BMW furious scmp.com/news/china/mon…

Here's a link to a previous story on the China-car-smuggling racket by the inimitable @JenStDen from her little-known days as an SCMP reporter scmp.com/news/world/uni…