Still no takers for Discayas’ Rolls-Royce, Bentley
A Rolls Royce and a Bentley for sale, each with a substantial discount—and still no takers.
The two luxury cars are the last of the vehicles owned by contractor couple Curlee and Sarah Discaya that remain on sale. They belong to a group of four luxury cars put up for a second auction held by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Friday.
The agency only managed to sell a 2023 Toyota Sequoia for P6 million to Jose Mario Esteban III, the winning bidder, and a 2022 Toyota Tundra to RMCE Metal Products Trading Corp., which won its bid at P3.52 million.
The remaining unsold cars were the Rolls-Royce Cullinan (2023)—which the BOC offered at P36.3 million after slashing by P9 million the original floor price of P45.3 million—and the Bentley Bentayga (2022) which was offered at P13.9 million, down by P3.4 million from the original price of P17.3 million.
Vlog features
These are among the seven confiscated vehicles whose sale the Discayas no longer challenged after the cars were found to have no import documentation.
The couple are at the center of the corruption scandal over the government’s flood-control projects with private contractors. Video or “vlog” features on their wealth, which showed they have at least 40 vehicles, were aired early this year, then suddenly went viral as the scandal began to unravel last July.
Direct offers
The BOC sold three of the confiscated cars on Nov. 17, raising P38.2 million in that auction.
Sealing products company Simplex Industrial Corp. bought a Mercedes-Benz G500 Brabus (2019) for P15.5 million and a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG (2022) for P15.6 million, while Lesentrell Jewelries bought a 2021 Lincoln Navigator for P7.1 million.
An auction committee formed by the bureau will soon decide what to do with the Rolls Royce and the Bentley, BOC Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Bendijo told the inquirer.
He said one option is to solicit direct offers from buyers who will themselves set the price.
But destroying the assets is out of the question, as the BOC had done on smuggled cars it had confiscated in the past.
“No plans of destroying,” Bendijo said. “As [BOC] Commissioner [Ariel Nepomuceno] had said, he is inclined to sell forfeited goods to generate revenue.”
