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Fleet of 25 Supercars Seized from Dictator’s Son Auctioned for $27 Million

An auction house in Switzerland, Bonhams, has auctioned off 25 supercars belonging to the son of a dictator, which had been seized in 2016 as part of an international investigation into money-laundering and mismanagement of public funds. Some of the money will be used as compensation for the people of Equatorial Guinea.
Seized 2014 Lamborghini Veneno Roadster fetches $8.4 million at auction in Switzerland 1 photo
Photo: qz.com
The auction took place at the Bonmont Golf & Country Club in Cheserex near Geneva, Switzerland, and all buyers have chosen to remain private. The final price topped initial estimates on the lot by more than 100 percent.

The pièce de résistance in the collection was a very rare 2014 Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, 9 of which were ever made, barely driven and in excellent condition, which fetched $8.4 million, qz.com reports. The off-white Roadster had some 200 miles on the odometer.

A 2014 Koenigsegg One:1 sold for $4.6 million, while a 2003 Ferrari Enzo fetched $3.1 million. Other cars in the lot included Bentleys, a McLaren, other Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces, all of them barely used.

Teodorin Obiang Nguema is the son of Equatorial Guinea’s dictator, Teodoro Obiang, and the country’s vice president. The government initially claimed that the cars belonged to the state and had been shipped to Switzerland for maintenance work. He was sentenced in 2017 to 3 years behind bars in France, after he was found guilty of using public money to finance a playboy lifestyle. With the fleet of 25 cars, authorities seized his personal yacht, wine collection, and artwork.

Nguema cut a deal with prosecutors, and a big chunk of the proceedings from the auction will go directly to the people he stole from, the people of Equatorial Guinea. Bonhams will deduct auction fees, and then the money will be donated by the State of Geneva to a charity from Nguema’s home country.

The investigation was a joint effort by authorities from the U.S., the Cayman Islands, Monaco, France, Denmark, the Marshall Islands and the Netherlands.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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