DA revs up anger over fake Mustangs' sale
SHAWNEE—The Pottawatomie County district attorney has created a furor among owners of classic Shelby and Boss Mustangs by announcing plans to auction off counterfeit clones of high-performance vehicles seized during 2016 raids.
“If I was doing that, they would arrest me for it ,” Allen Mason said of the district attorney's planned sale. Mason's mother owns a real 1970 Red and Gold Shelby Mustang GT500 convertible — a clone of which is one of the cars that Pottawatomie County District Attorney Allan Grubb has put up for auction.
“They don't know enough about cars to know what they are doing is wrong,” Mason said.
The district attorney said he believe she has acted properly.
Grubb said he has obtained new titles for the cloned automobiles and that matching new VIN plates have been obtained and attached to door frames.
Grubb said his opinion is based on conversations he has had with officials from the FBI, U.S. Attorney' s
Office, Oklahoma Highway Patrol and National Insurance Crime Bureau. But is it enough?
Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth has questions.
“I'm a little upset myself,” Booth said .“If they are clones and they've had state re assigned VIN numbers and titles, ... how can he sell
them when the person who originally owned them was arrested for that?.... I have a lot of questions that I know I'm not going to get any answers.”
Some critics of the district attorney's auction plans point to a state law that says in part :“Any person who buys, disposes, sells, transfers, or possesses a motor vehicle or motor vehicle part, with knowledge that the vehicle identification number of the motor vehicle or motor vehicle part has been altered, counterfeited, defaced, destroyed, disguised, falsified, forged, obliterated, or removed, upon conviction is guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment for not more than five (5) years, or by a fine of not more than Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000.00), or by both such imprisonment and fine.”
The flashy sports cars that are up for auction have a tragic history.
Metro-area attorney Kermit Milburn killed himself at an Edmond gun range in July 2016 — just two weeks after law enforcement officers investigating high-performance Mustang cloning operations executed search warrants at his Shawnee law office, Edmond home and other locations in Pottawatomie, Oklahoma and Canadian counties.
Grubb said five Mustangs seized in those raids are among six cars his office is putting up for auction 10 a.m. Feb. 8 at Firelake Arena in Shawnee. The sixth car is a 2006 Mustang GT seized in a drug arrest. The automobiles are part of a much larger group of collector cars and memorabilia that Ball Auction Service will be selling to the highest bidder. Online bidding is already underway. Two other automobiles seized in the raids will be sold later, Grubb said.
The cars being auctioned that were seized from the Mil burn investigation include a 1970 Shelby GT500 convertible, two 1970 Mustang Boss automobiles, a 1970 Mustang convertible and a partially rebuilt 1970 Shelby. The car in the auction that was seized as part of an unrelated drug arrest is a 2006 Mustang GT.
On the auction site, the description of each automobile includes the disclaimer: “This vehicle is being sold for the Pottawatomie County District Attorney
and was from a seizure of an estate. This vehicle comes with a state assigned VIN. Authenticity, badging, and information provided to the auction company cannot be guaranteed. We strongly encourage you to inspect this vehicle personally and bid accordingly.”
Even with that disclaimer, some Mustang owners question whether Grubb has done enough to warn potential bidders and protect the financial interests of real Mustang owners whose vehicles were cloned.
Part of t heir concern stems from the great lengths that the car counterfeiters went through to make it appear that the cloned automobiles were original Shelbys.
Grubb said individuals involved in the car counterfeiting operation would find old ordinary Mustang car bodies and then build them into Shelbys using Shelby parts. They would then scrutinize Shelby car reports for VIN numbers that appeared to have been dormant for many years. Assuming those cars likely had been destroyed, workers would then counterfeit those VIN numbers.
“They ... created fake VIN plates for the cars and I assume fake VIN plates for the engines — I haven't looked there yet,” Grubb said.
The cars could then be sold to unsuspecting buyers as original classic Shelbys, which can bring prices well in excess of $100,000.
Shelby Mustang owners said a big part of their concern with the auction is that even though new state VIN numbers have been placed on the door frames, counterfeit VIN numbers that match their original cars may still be attached to other places on the cloned cars.
Someone could buy those cloned cars and go to another state, file a lost title claim and get a new title using the counterfeit VIN numbers found elsewhere on the vehicles. They say that could cloud the title on their own cars, decrease their value, and force them to go to court at some point to prove their ownership.
Mustang owners said they would like for Grubb to make sure all the counterfeit VIN numbers have been removed or have the cars crushed.
Grubb questioned whether that was necessary.
“That's a felony to remove that VIN plate that I've put on. I don't care what state you go to,” Grubb said. “Seriously, think about that.... . They're asking me to ensure that nobody ever duplicates their car again or their title or tries to use that stuff. How can I ensure what somebody 20 years from now is going to do or not going to do?”
“The relief they want is unreasonable and I can't just cheat my citizens out of seized assets,” Grubb said. “It would be unethical to cheat my citizens from my counties out of seized assets that I can put for fighting the war on drugs or taking care of citizens by prosecuting bad guys.”
Grubb said even cars that buyers know are cloned can bring hefty prices. Online bidding for the cloned 1970 Red and Gold Shelby Mustang GT500 convertible was already up to $66,000 by Friday afternoon and bidding on the two 1970 Boss Mustangs stood at $26,500 and $24,000, with the auction scheduled to continue for another week.
Grubb said two-thirds of the money from sale of the cars is scheduled to go to his office and one-third will go to the jail trust in the county
where the cars were seized.
Frank Scafidi, director of public affairs for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, said he thinks owners of vehicles that have been cloned have a legitimate concern.
Scafidi said he also has some concerns that buyers of cloned vehicles could run into difficulty if they are stopped by a law enforcement officer and the officer notices a discrepancy between the VIN number on the door frame and VIN numbers found elsewhere on the vehicle.
“There needs to be some sort of official document from the government that explains the history of the vehicle,” he said.
Grubb said there is another issue that has some classic Mustang enthusiasts and investors scared.
Grubb said he checked VIN numbers on vehicles associated with Milburn's name and found Milburn sold 40-60 of those type cars over the past 15 years.
Grubb said people who bought cars from Milburn are likely worried that the district attorney will start reviewing titles and trying to seize additional cloned vehicles.
“There were people buying these as original for almost 15 years,” he said. “That's what they're really afraid of is that I'm going to go looking at what he actually sold ... . If they pop up, we'll seize them, but I don't have time and resources right now to send people out there looking all over hell's half-acre.”
Most of the cars Milburn sold were to overseas places like Dubai, Europe and China, Grubb said.