Get Your Lamborghini From Mexico's Government. Going Cheap
After Sunday’s sale of vehicles, the govenment agency will auction apartments and jewelry.
(Bloomberg) -- If getting rid of Mexico’s Air Force One and flying commercial wasn’t enough, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is bolstering his man-of-the-people image by auctioning off luxury cars seized from criminals to anyone who wants to participate.
And where better to hold this public auction than at Los Pinos, the former presidential mansion in Mexico City that Lopez Obrador already converted into a cultural center. The proceeds from the sale will go to two poor towns in the southern state of Oaxaca. Registration to participate costs a little over $5.
Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, has renamed the government agency that auctions off seized goods as the Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People, and appointed the person in charge of that agency, Ricardo Rodriguez, to head it. After Sunday’s sale of vehicles, the institute will auction apartments and jewelry and donate the proceeds to rehab centers and poor towns in Guerrero state.
"Everything that’s seized is going to be given over to communities, above all poor communities in the country," the president said Tuesday at his morning news conference.
A Lamborghini Murcielago, two Porsches, two Corvettes, a Mini Cooper and a Ford Mustang convertible are all on the auction block for this Sunday. A Ford Shelby is also up for sale with a starting bid of 1.2 million pesos ($63,000).
To contact the reporter on this story: Nacha Cattan in Mexico City at ncattan@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Carlos Manuel Rodriguez at carlosmr@bloomberg.net, Juan Pablo Spinetto, Bruce Douglas
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