Yesterday I wrote about how 76-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger was detained at Munich Airport for three hours, following a random inspection at customs that revealed some valuable, undeclared goods. There are now more details about how exactly this unfolded, and it’s an interesting story…
Schwarzenegger detained over luxury watch
Schwarzenegger flew Lufthansa from Los Angeles to Munich on Tuesday, landing at the airport at around 1:40PM on Wednesday. He’s in Europe for the World Climate Summit in Kitzbühel, Austria, and Munich is the closest airport to that (so he was going to leave the airport and drive to Kitzbühel).
According to reports, when Schwarzenegger cleared customs at the airport, he was stopped by officials and asked to open his bags. Presumably the customs officers knew who he was (who doesn’t?), though the claim is that there wasn’t any particular reason for suspicion, but rather it was just a random check.
Schwarzenegger claims he was asked a variety of personal questions as well, including how many children he has, his partner’s name, how much money he has in his bank account, and his net worth. Then upon opening his luggage, customs officials discovered a super rare Audemars Piguet watch. This was a custom watch for Schwarzenegger, belonging to his private collection. Schwarzenegger’s plan was for this watch to be auctioned off before dinner on Thursday, at the official start of the summit, as part of a fundraiser.
Unfortunately this caused some major issues. Not only was Schwarzenegger detained for hours, but he has also faced a significant fine.
German customs initiating criminal tax proceedings
Customs officials aren’t too happy about Schwarzenegger trying to enter Germany with a valuable watch that wasn’t declared, with a spokesperson for the customs office in Munich stating that they “have initiated criminal tax proceedings,” as “the watch should have been registered because it is an import.”
Obviously you’re allowed to travel to Germany with valuables. The issues is that he had no intent of taking this back to the United States, and therefore it was an import. When you fly to Germany, there are no customs forms you fill out, though you’re supposed to proactively declare any imports, which obviously didn’t happen.
When it comes to the watch, Schwarzenegger apparently claimed it was worth €20,000, though it ended up being valued by customs officials at €26,000. This was then subjected to a tax value of €4,000, plus a penalty of €5,000 for failing to declare it.
Schwarzenegger was then prepared to pay the tax plus the fine, so he handed over his credit card. However, officials said that only half of the amount could be paid by credit card, and the other half had to be paid in cash. So then he had to be escorted to a bank so that he could get the cash needed to pay the fee, as the ATM didn’t allow him to withdraw enough money.
In response to all of this, Schwarzenegger says that “this is the problem that Germany is suffering from, you can no longer see the forest for the trees.” He claims he was just trying to do a good deed, and he was punished for it.
I have to say that one of my biggest takeaways from this is the amount the watch was valued at. A custom Audemars Piguet was valued at “just” €26,000 by customs officials? It sounds to me like he got off easy, and there might be a zero missing there.
Bottom line
“Terminator” superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger was detained at Munich Airport for hours on Wednesday. He was reportedly randomly stopped, and officials discovered a valuable Audemars Piguet watch. Schwarzenegger intended to auction this off for a good cause during the World Climate Summit, but failed to follow correct import procedures. He ended up having to pay a total of €9,000, including the standard import tax plus a fine.
What do you make of this situation?
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