A white Lamborghini, python-skin Christian Louboutin shoes and Rolex watches were among a trove of “bling” from the drug-dealing world that was auctioned off today by the French state to raise money and send a message to criminals, reports The Times.
The six-year-old Lamborghini Huracan with 30,000km on the clock went for 120,000 euros (£106,000) in the auction of 277 lots confiscated from convicted or suspected drug dealers. The car was parked outside the auction site, a packed courtroom in the historic Palais de Justice, the old central courts on the Île de la Cité by the River Seine.
The seized items, estimated at some 700,000 euros, sold for a total of 1.28 million euros. They ranged from a Scania HGV tractor unit, listed at 30,000 euros, to jewellery, video-game consoles, designer trainers, luxury leather goods and a Louis Vuitton “man bag”. Two Dyson vacuum cleaners suggested a house-proud side to the narcotics trade.
The sale, which also attracted hundreds of online bidders, was the first of its kind under a law that allows the confiscation of personal property of people sent for trial or already convicted on drug trafficking charges and other serious offences. If the alleged criminal is acquitted, the state returns the funds realised in the sale, plus interest.
The money raised is used to buy equipment for the police and for the deterrence of drug consumption. The well-advertised auction is aimed at showing that the law can quickly snatch all the glitzy status symbols that are prized in the dealers’ world.