Thai Customs admits selling fake luxury watches in auction including pieces from Rolex, Patek Philippe and Richard Mille

Time+Tide

Watch lovers are always on the lookout for ways to source highly in-demand pieces at prices that aren’t totally bananas. One potential avenue for this are those auctions held by police or government authorities. These often feature items that have been seized or repossessed, because if an asset was used in a crime, owned by someone who has committed a crime, or bought using ill-gotten gains, the police usually have the right to take possession of it. Such assets often include luxury watches.

What this can offer the potential buyer is access to highly desirable pieces at prices that can be far below the secondary-market rate.  In addition, the legitimacy of the organisation behind the auction – ie the police or relevant authorities – means that most people automatically believe they’re buying watches of trusty provenance. Now, it seems, that can no longer be such a wise assumption.

The Thai Customs Department recently admitted that they sold fake luxury watches at one of their auctions. Three victims discovered they had bought counterfeit watches from a Thai Customs auction held on July 6. The watches weren’t cheap either, given they including pieces from Richard Mille, Patek Philippe and Rolex.

One of the victims, Pat Boondate revealed that she’d bought a Richard Mille RM07 No. 3287 with a diamond studded dial for 2.2 million baht (US$63,547) while a relative bought a Patek Philippe Aquanaut 5167 for 1.89 million baht (US$54,592).

Another victim, Kitthanachai Chimsutthi told media that his daughter had bought two watches for him – a Richard Mille Rafael Nadal for 4.5 million baht  (US$130,000) and a Rolex Daytona for 650,000 baht (US$18,775).

Many of these are very attractive prices, perhaps suspiciously so. One of the Richard Mille pieces, for example, looks to be the RM 035 with similar models on Chrono24 starting at prices from US$401,000.

Upon winning their bids, the buyers collected their purchases only to realise that they’d been sold fakes and duly alerted the authorities.  A Thai Customs spokesperson apologised and admitted that, after investigating the issue, all of the watches in the auction were found to be fake. He revealed the watches were seized from a shop in Siam Square One shopping mall in Bangkok last year. Apologies were issued to the buyers and their money was duly reimbursed.

It’s another cautionary tale that if a watch price sounds too good to be true, it probably is.