Yesterday we told you that the Police Department had been to the Customs Department on Monday to collect and commandeer over 10 vehicles that had been impounded by the Customs Department.
Police were taking the vehicles, mostly L200 pickup trucks, to be used for patrols by the Department and the BDF. Well the seizure caught the attention of the owners of those vehicles who were led by government to believe that they could get back their vehicles once the duty was paid. But on Monday, many of them learned that their vehicles were going to be used for police purposes. Well that started a backlash against the seizure, and since yesterday the Police Department has been order by senior personnel at the Ministry of Finance to bring the vehicles back immediately. With that they were brought in from the BDF and Police posts between last night and this morning.
In at least 5 cases the process to clear the vehicles was fast tracked, the duty paid and they were cleared out of Customs. It turns out that someone in the Ministry of Finance and the police thought that the vehicles had been forfeited for customs evasion when that was not the case.
As we have reported, the vehicles were seized as part of a customs investigation into wrongdoing at the city Traffic Department. The dealer who sold as many as 40 Third World luxury pickups and SUV's had been working a scam with the Traffic Department. Those who bought the vehicles had no idea they were buying frequently licensed vehicles that had been stolen from Guatemala as they paid close to market value. No arrests have been made in the ongoing, but apparently interminable investigation.
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