Stolen F50

Just a question for some of you out there that may be in the insurance business. This is in reference to the case of the F50 that was seized at the Canadian border and believed to be stolen from Italy 18 years ago.
If the original owner was paid for the loss of the car from his insurance company 18 yrs ago and now the car turns up in customs, does the car go to the insurance company? And if so, does the IC contact the original owner to buy the car back or do they put it out to auction? I would assume they paid the owner 6 to 700 K for the loss 18 yrs ago, and now the car has appreciated to double that so do they benefit from that or not. Thanks

 

Don't know, but it probably depends from country to country: insurance regulations and practice vary a lot, so you would need an Italian insurer (or owner) to have an answer to that one.
Even here in Europe, it varies from country to country, for instance on the matter of "recel" (more or less "concealment") which in some country is constitued even if the intermediary didn't have any reason to suspect it was a stolen car.
In some countries, the recovered car is put up for auction but the original owner might have a preemption right (kind of "right of first refusal"); but in most of the cases, once he had accepted the insurance's original indemnification offer, he no longer has it, as he has lost ownership.
Sorry not not be able to answer better.

Rgds

 

If the car really was insured and if the insurance company really paid out the owner then the car belongs today to the insurance company.
There is no proof yet that the car was really insured. It seems the Italian victim claims he didn't get paid and it is possible that the car wasn't insured at all (at the time of theft).
If it was insured and if the victim got paid by the insurance company back in 2003 the victim may have first right of refusal if the insurance company offers the found car to him.
This case looks to me that it will take quite some time until a clear decision is made. The only people that will actually make money here will be the lawyers.
Please also check out the original thread in the F50/Supercar section of fchat.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/ferrari-stolen-in-italy-18-years-ago-recovered-at-peace-bridge-u-s-attorney-looking-for-owner.638771/#post-147797044

Marcel Massini

 

Good evening Marcel,

I've seen the other thread (even if I do not go to the Supercar thread usually: out of my league).
I do have a question: how would you understand the said sentence in the original article from the Buffalo paper?
"He also provided documentation from his insurance company showing his loss was not covered".

As you know french as good as I do, in french "covered" would translate in "couvert", meaning in insurance vocabulary that theft is not insured by his policy, so he couldn't claim any money.
BUT should "covered" had to be translated by "not paid", it could (could) then mean that theft was covered, that the insurance offered him to pay, but that the owner did not accept; in that case, he would have kept ownership...
(In French insurance terms, "cover" (couverture) is the extent of protection; it is different from" indemnification", actual payment)
("est-ce couvert" = "is it covered": am I protected if that happens? Then if it has actually happened, said cover functiuns, you are indemnified)
Agreed: the lawyers and insurance experts will make money.
One last question: could any lawyer here tell us what law will be used to determine ownership? Us law, or Italian law?

Rgds

 

I do speak English and French and understand the word covered/couvert etc.
Forget trusting anything written by some journalist in some newspaper or website. That is just a report or story and certainly not legally binding or correct.
I can only assume that the car was not insured at the time of theft, for whatever reason. Maybe it was just insured for theft at his private home but the theft occured in a hotel garage and maybe that wasn't insured/covered. Or the Italian victim had zero insurance at all. As said before, in the other threads about stolen F40s, there is at least one stolen F40 which wasn't insured. Don't ask me why people do not insure their cars. In Switzerland, where I live, one could not even register a car and would never get license plates without proof of insurance. Absolutely mandatory. But other countries are different.
Determining ownership: In many countries one cannot legally buy stolen goods so the goods (in this case the F50) will have to go back to the previous guy and on and on. That's why I said it will be a very long affair for sure. God only knows how many people had this car between the theft in 2003 and today. And in how many different countries. Italy, then possibly Dubai, Japan, Canada, now U.S.
Go and get some popcorn.

Marcel Massini

 

Thanks Marcel.
Interesting case, for sure. As long one is not personally involved, that is...
Rgds

 

Marcel,
Thank you for the explanation, and yes I agree that the lawyers will feast on this case for as long as their clients checkbook holds out. As a Ferrari expert, do you know if there are other iron clad ways to determine if this F50 is indeed the one that was stolen in Italy in 2003? If the thieves removed and replaced the VIN plates and the assembly numbers with phony ones, are there other casting numbers on the frame or drivetrain that would provide positive proof that this is indeed the one? I would assume that when a car is going down an assembly line, the engine, trans, and all other major components are just taken from lots that contain similar casting numbers and therefore it would be difficult to determine which car this one really is. However, with a car like the F50 where production numbers are so low maybe they can prove this by process of elimination by identifying all of the other cars authenticity first. I remember some years ago, dealers used to acid etch the glass and stamp the VIN on to as many parts of the car that they could so as to discourage thieves from being able to sell the car as whole by just replacing the VIN plate. And trying to sell someone a window glass with another (stolen) cars VIN on it I'm sure made it much less valuable. Thanks again. John

 

Plenty of numbers everywhere. On the F50 seized at the CDN/US border I am sure the engine and gearbox number plus the body number have not been changed so it should be no problem to identify the car. Please check out the threads about the stolen F40s for additional information re identification but also the thread about F40 #90969 that provides you with plenty of identification details.
And no, its not dealers that acid etch glass. Some insurance companies in France and other places required all glass stamped with either a code or the serial number or the license plate of the car. I did the same thing years ago with a rather expensive Mercedes.

Marcel Massini

 

In the US. The owner who owned it at the time of the theft would get first right of refusal at or below then insurance pay out..that's "typically" how it works.

In a situation like this the new victim would try to get ahold of the original owner and work out a monetary settlement that would allow the person to keep the car but pay the original owner/ victim some sort of profit. This is assuming that the new owner has no idea the car was stolen and was misrepresented.

There is actually a coverage in some people's insurance called false pretense coverage. So if the vehicle ever gets seized and you oruchased the car through regular means and have title and all the proper paperwork and paid an appropriate amount of money at the time etc... Your insurance company will make you whole in an instance like this. It is not scammer insurance... But is for instances exactly like this.

 

All that legal stuff is great and all, but lets focus on the important thing here... Is the car ok. There's not exactly a surplus of F50s out there. Of course I'm kidding, but seriously, how the car?

 

Interesting, thanks; I don't think this exists in France for cars, but again, considering the "supercars" in question, I'm a bit ou of my league here.
However, what I do know is that during the nineties and 2000s, in the former communist countries, were private property, registers of properties and notaries had been absent for 70 years, there was a very popular insurance for anyone buying real estate: when you bought a house or a flat, this insurance was covering you in case someone has a title "as legal as yours", on the same the house or flat, in case it had also been sold "just as legally" to another owner...
Rgds

 

As said by Marcel above, I think this is a matter for the other thread in the "288/F40/F50" thread; as interesting it might be, the topic of this one is about insurance.
Anybody versed in legal matters knowing which law the american judge will apply? This is a car originally owned by an italian Citizen, who seems to still have a valid claim of ownership; registered in Canada and coming from Canada when it was seized in the United States, on american soil?
Rgds

 

Agreed. I'll take my cheeky comments to the correct thread as you requested. So is the actual deed holder? The Italian?

 

The source of information is mainly an article from the "Buffalo Post", and, as wisely pointed out by Marcel, they might not know the exact details but, and this is in direct relation to this thread, it seems that the Italian gentleman, the first owner, never relinquished his original title (whether the car was insured and he refused indemnification or anything else...) nor did he retire his official complaint of theft in Italy. Therefore, my GUESS (only a guess) would be that they both have a valid title...
Which makes the case very interesting from a legal point of view (again: as long as your are not personally involved; because this litigation will be long, probably; but perhaps we will learn a few things about the circuit followed by the car)

Rgds

 

There can only be one actual deed. A certificate of title is not a deed. The actual deed holder would be the rightful owner with at least the first right of refusal in my opinion. A quick google search of Certificate of Title vs Deed explains the basics. https://www.sapling.com/8493730/certificate-title-vs-deed and https://finance.zacks.com/certificate-title-vs-deed-8377.html are just a few of the top results. And if you really want to go down an ownership rabbit hole, read the meet your strawman article and other pages found here https://www.redemptionservice.com/meet-your-strawman/. It may not be fully relevant if it's not on American soil, but maybe after you travel down that entertaining rabbit hole, you'll be able to figure out a technicality or gain an insight into how to position yourself in a way to acquire such an asset as this 2.5 million US dollar F50. The cliffnotes version = The deed holder legally owns it. They just may not realize it and you may be able to get a new certificate of title created which would probably suffice in a world where most buyers won't understand the technical difference.

 

That's probably right, according to american law, but (and also according to the article in "The Buffalo Post", with the caveats, etc...) as the matter stands now, the U.S administration is unable to decide to whom the car legally belongs, so a trial is needed: that seems rather clear from one of their official statements.
So it is not easy, and my guess would be that the Italian owner has as many valid rights on the car as the American one, perhaps (and this is a question for lawyers) considering that the car has been stolen from him in Italy, never paid off by an insurance and that he never retired his theft complaint?
Pretty sure there will be a question of "compared laws" here: which law has preeminence?

(You have, by the way, more or less the same difference in France with the "certificate of registration" - called "grey card" in the old days...- which, legally, does not prove any right regarding ownership: the "certifcate of registration" might have your name on it, but it does not prove that you are owner of said car: see the famous Bardinon's 250 GTO legal case)

Rgds

 

Legally "owner" and "holder" (as on a French gray card or on a Swiss title) are not the same.

Marcel Massini

 

One interesting thing is that, as far as I understand, in France (I don't know for other countries) there is actually no property title for a car (unlike for a house, for which there is one) - all that one gets is the registration title (which however now may mention that the holder is the owner) and some indirect evidence of property, such as a purchase invoice.

 

#1 why would the purchaser in FLA want to pursue keeping the car? In the ultra nit picky ferrari resale world is this car not going to be hard to resell with its story/history? Or is in now "infamous" in a way that makes the history just a side note? Prospective buyers black ball normal road cars if sellers don't have documents saying the air in the tires is "approved factory air." If I'm the buyer in FLA I'll take my $2M and go find another one without so much drama.

#2 Dealer in Canada IMO should get the shaft because as a dealer you cant or don't have the time/ability/concern to do your homework on such a rare car to question it's validity? For gosh sakes the government employee at the border took one look at the vin plate (according to the article) and thought something was fishy. As a dealer who is (presumably) somewhat familiar with high end cars they could see that?

#3 IMWO car goes back to owners who it was stolen from. buyer in FLA gets his $ back from dealer and dealer learns a good lesson. Dealer obviously know where they got it, so its on them to track that party down and recover their $. I'm sure the law is way more complicated than that but that show I see it

 

At the time of theft in Imola, in March 2003, F50 #105810 was already owned by the fourth (4th) Italian owner. Bergamo-based dealer Autoexotic di Paolo Provenzi (the victim) was not the first owner. All four early owners were in Italy. Somehow (following the theft) the car went to Japan. While there it was maintained (between 2012 and 2016) by a shop named "Verde Garage Co. Ltd." located in Hokuto in the Yamanashi prefecture.

Marcel Massini

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It seems like an insane car to steal since so few were made and Marcel just proved how easy it is to trace.

 

On the other hand some could apparently get away for 18 years... so if a thief converted the stolen car into good money quickly he could have spent it and enjoyed 18 years of peace (with no guarantee he'll come into some trouble now). Hopefully in the more connected world of today it would not take that long.

 

It would appear that the buyer in Florida could have easily been aware of the cars checkered history. A simple email to Marcel would have made him think twice about buying it. Unless....he knew what he was buying and was hoping to slide it by US Customs.

Anyway.....I expect three Parties will go to court. 1) The Canadian company that sold the car to gent in Florida 2) The gent in Florida 3) the original owner.

Given the various statutes and international treaties......each Party will drop $150-200k just for the lawyers and their lawyerly arguments. If the Canadian company that sold the car to gent in Florida actually exists I expect they will lose on a Summary Judgement and be required to return the money to the guy in Florida. If the company that sold him the car has disappeared.....the guy in Florida will lose the money he spent (the Judge will point out that he could have sent an email to either to Ferrari or Marcel to verify the car before he bought it).

The only matter remaining in front of the Court is validating the original owner's claims. If the Court cannot, the car will be put up for auction.

 

where/how did they get and or make up the fake/spare/unused/etc vin with so few cars to work with?

 

It was an online transaction. Undoubtedly the seller and the buyer's money are long gone. While my guess is the buyer has little chance of being awarded the car, he has even less chance of getting his money back from the seller.