The Philippine government continues its crackdown on crime and smuggling by crushing a Ferrari with a bulldozer.
You might be wondering how bulldozing a Ferrari reduces crime. It doesn’t. However, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte seems to think that destroying seized vehicles rather than auctioning them off or reselling them sends a message to car smugglers and drug lords that operating illegal enterprises in the country will result in the destruction of their property.
Which is true, but it doesn’t actually convince people to stop smuggling. It just convinces them not to get caught.
The Philippine government has made the public execution of seized assets a bit of a spectacle in recent years. Last year, we witnessed the wholesale destruction of $5.5 million worth of luxury vehicles, including Porsches, Mercedes, and Lamborghinis.
Officials argue that these cars can’t be auctioned off simply because crimelords will just buy them back. Which seems like a great way to raise money for things like hospitals, roads, education, or even just more cops to make crime an even riskier enterprise. But no, the order of the day is wanton murder of innocent vehicles by a bulldozer, which is what we see here.
The latest car to meet a terrible fate is a Ferrari 360 Spider in beautiful baby blue. According to the Philippine Star, this Ferrari was worth the equivalent of $137,000 "before being crushed, which significantly reduced its value."
You can see the whole thing on YouTube thanks to Philippine news site GMA News.
According to Gulf News Asia, this particular car was seized by government officials for being mislabeled as “car parts.” Apparently, taxes on imported vehicles are huge in the Phillippines, which incentivizes import companies to label cars as missing parts so they can be admitted to the country as mere parts rather than a working vehicle.
That obviously didn’t fly this time around. Now because someone was sloppy with their paperwork (or didn’t bribe the right officials--another problem in Southeast Asia), we get to see this poor Ferrari getting crushed beneath tons of metal.
Rest in peace.
(via Jalopnik)