Defenders Seized in USA

[sailourboy]

Saw this discussion on a US based discussion board this morning and for what it is worth here it is:

"Crackdown*

To our surprise, officials from NHTSA and CBP were forthcoming in
discussing the techniques they?re using to catch contraband Defenders. VIN
plates, for example, often look too new?and more incredibly, they?ve picked
up that it?s the *rivets* affixing the plates that look out of date.
Freshly galvanized frames can be a tell, and nuts and bolts elsewhere on
vehicles, like those on the doors in the photo above, are another tip-off
that at least some refurbishment took place.

CBP officers tend to take a pretty holistic view on vehicle inspection,
meaning that they?re not satisfied merely by a 25-year-old VIN. If vehicle
components overall look too new, they?ll reach out not only to NHTSA but
even to Land Rover itself?which, officials say, has been helpful to a
nearly unprecedented degree. Land Rover can, of course, date frames based
on the minor details that changed from year to year.

This isn?t a quick process, nor is it cheap for vehicle owners.
Verification can take weeks, during which time someone?s Defender is held
in a customs area?and they may need to pay storage fees for the duration.
One CBP official emphasized that many people buying vehicles from overseas
don?t consider these costs, which can accrue even if a car is eventually
cleared for import. The situation gets much worse when a car is found
ineligible: cars can be seized and crushed, seized and sold by the
government to international buyers, and shippers fined or potentially
criminally prosecuted."
There are 40 trucks on the hit list for todays seizures.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/exclusive- ... defenders/

Can Canada be far behind, who knows?
Cheers
Ted

[DBrands]

I don't think Canada will have the same issues. With only a 15 year exemption, we're into the TD5s now.

Its only those that have tried to circumvent the rules in the US that I have seen/heard being hassled.

Pay to play. :bom:

[red90]

It is not clear as customs is not being overly forthcoming in details...but the seizures yesterday are most likely centered around allegations of the truck containing stolen parts (stolen in the UK, before import), not that they were VIN swaps or had incorrect parts. They are seizing all cars imported by a specific importer regardless of whether or not each vehicle may or may not have stolen parts. A real mess as many trucks have been in the country for 4 years and have been sold multiple times. It is also not clear if it was only 40 vehicles. There is a 37 page thread that you can read on Defendersource.com

[ashek]

Its up to 57 pages of crap now. Gist is that 40 or so trucks had incorrectly declared build dates (in some cases off by months, in some cases years) and were less than 25 years when imported. Contraband is still contraband many years down the road, and as such is being seized. Sucks for the owners :(

[50thd90]

Nothing has been proven yet guys so all this about possibly having stolen parts and falsified VINS really shouldn't be mentioned. I think that a lot of those trucks were probably perfectly legal. But we are all just guessing.

[red90]

The compliant that resulted in the warrant was made public and can be read. The complaint basically states that they found two trucks imported by said importer with TD5s in them last year. That discovery resulted in the seizure of all of his stock last year. They then took the list of all vehicles he imported (140+) and sent them to LRNA to determine build dates. The 40 that were recently seized had build dates that were less than 25 years from the import date and that was the justification for the warrant. The warrant is from April (I think) and they have been surveilling the 40 people since that point to allow for a coordinated seizure....

If you read the complaint, the list with the build dates is full of very obvious errors. You can develop your own rumours as to how LRNA could have made "errors" in something as simple as supplying build dates against VINs....

One of the Defendersource members is a lawyer in the state the warrant was issued and and has agreed to represent any of the 40 people that had trucks seized at no cost. He has started the process. His first action was to point out the errors and Land Rover is supposed to have gone back to "correct" the wrong information. He has been having meetings with customs and Land Rover but I doubt any more real information will be forthcoming until things are resolved.

[red90]

Got 6 of the trucks on their way back to owners. http://www.defendersource.com/forum/sho ... count=1202

[red90]

As a follow up, all of the remaining trucks are now being returned to their owners.

Will Hedrick, a LR enthusiast and Lawyer took on the case pro-bono for all of the owners and has now gotten the trucks on the way back home.