Customs officials reportedly charge actor €35,000 after alleged failure to declare item intended for climate charity auction
Arnold Schwarzenegger was briefly held by customs officers at Munich airport on Wednesday after allegedly failing to declare a €26,000 (£22,000) Audemars Piguet watch the Terminator star was planning to sell at an auction in aid of his climate crisis charity.
The Austrian-born actor and former governor of California, 76, was stopped at the airport for about three hours upon arrival from Los Angeles, according to the German tabloid Bild, which quoted customs officials.
Schwarzenegger was taken aside by officers who searched his luggage and found the watch, which the actor had allegedly not declared on his arrivals customs form.
A spokesperson for the main customs office in Munich said: “We have initiated criminal tax proceedings. The watch should have been registered because it is an import.” We
Is this a German thing? I’ve traveled many times between Canada and the USA and never had to fill any customs form.
Edit: Boy oh boy. I thought Reddit was the toxic place, but can’t ask a damn question in here without getting slammed with downvotes?
Most countries dislike people registered as tourists carrying products intended for commerce. In this instance it was intended for auctioning even with the proceedings going to a charitable org but maybe the German law doesn’t make a distinction (it seems an edge case that possibly wouldn’t have been codified).
There’s a threshold for declaration at the US-Canada border too. Your odds of getting searched in a car at the canada-us border are low, though.