A gleaming red vintage Porsche – reported stolen in 1988 – was seized at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as it was waiting to be shipped to a new owner overseas.
The 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo – minus its engine – was spotted by customs officials during a routine check of its registration at the ports last week. It was the 25th stolen car nabbed by vigilant port inspectors in about a year.
“We check the vehicle identification number of every car being exported out of the country on a daily basis,” said Marlene Figueroa, a supervisor who was part of the team that found the car. “Sure enough, there was a record in the system that indicates that the car was stolen back in 1988.”
The car – popular with collectors – was on its way to an individual in the Netherlands, Figueroa said. Law enforcement officials are investigating whether that person knew it had been stolen.
With its engine, the car would have been worth about $80,000 Figueroa said. The car was in excellent condition, and it’s possible that the shipper had removed the engine to send separately.
“We speculate that maybe the engine was already smuggled out of the country in another shipment,” she said. Without the engine, the car was worth about $27,500.
But perhaps in an effort to deflect attention from the car as it was being shipped, the sender had declared its value to be about $12,500.
The rightful owner of the car is the insurance company that paid off on it when it was reported missing in Las Vegas 23 years ago, Figueroa said. Investigators have not yet released the identity of the original owner.
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