Schwarzenegger Sells A Luxury Watch. An Incident Occurs Before The Auction
Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger has sold a watch for $447,000 at an auction after he was stopped at a German airport because he did not declare it. The money he raised has been donated.
The Terminator star (76) was briefly detained by German customs officers at Munich Airport on Wednesday (January 17), for failing to declare the watch.
He remained for some hours at Munich Airport during a routine check ahead of the auction for his environmental charity.
Photo: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Source: Facebook)
The minimum bid for Schwarzenegger's watch, an Audemars Piguet, was USD 55.000, and the proceeds from the auction will be donated to environmental projects. The watch was made especially for the famous Terminator by the luxury Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet.
In total, the sales - which also included artwork, jewelry, a personal training session with Schwarzenegger, a concert with a German band The BossHoss, and a day on the set of the German-Austrian series Bergdoktor - raised $2,16 million.
The Incident With Customs Officials
On Wednesday, the Austrian-born actor was detained by customs at Munich airport upon his arrival in Germany. Customs accused him of not declaring the watch, even though it was supposed to remain within the European Union.
A spokesperson for the customs office in Munich said: “We have initiated criminal tax proceedings. The watch should have been registered because it is an import”.
Schwarzenegger said he tried to tell officials that the watch was being donated to his Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative to be auctioned off at an event in the Austrian ski resort of Kitzbühel on Thursday night.
“This is the problem that Germany is suffering from. You can no longer see the forest for the trees,” he told Bild.
Schwarzenegger was reportedly charged USD 38,000 by officials, encompassing USD 4,400 in taxes and a USD 5,500 penalty, as per Bild.
The actor purportedly offered to settle the fee using his credit card, but German customs regulations stipulate that half of the charge must be paid in cash. Allegedly, customs officials accompanied Schwarzenegger to a bank where he withdrew the required cash before being permitted to continue his journey.
A spokesperson for customs conveyed to Sueddeutsche Zeitung, "If the goods remain in the EU, you have to declare them through customs. This applies to everyone, whether their name is Schwarzenegger or Müller, Meier, Huber".
