Ecclestone: gun in luggage was for playing jokes
BERNIE ECCLESTONE has said the gun he was arrested with at an airport was used to “play jokes on people” and is the type that “a woman would keep in her handbag”.
The former Formula One tycoon was detained at Viracopos international airport in Brazil on Wednesday, after an undocumented LW Seecamp 32 pistol was found in his bags.
Mr Ecclestone, 91, has now claimed the small revolver was packed in error, as he had been carrying it around his house and jumping out on people holding it.
He told Mailonline: “It’s the sort of gun a woman would keep in her handbag. I’ve only ever used it to play jokes on people and that is what I was doing with it a few days ago, walking around the house with it, jumping out on people and larking around.
“I tucked the gun away in my shirt pocket and forgot about it. Somehow that shirt got packed up and was in my luggage without me realising it.
“We got to the airport about 8pm yesterday and as we were going through the security about an hour or so later, the scanner picked the gun up and I was pulled aside.”
The billionaire, who has been living in Brazil, said he bought the gun from a friend five years ago for personal protection and it has never been loaded with bullets.
He said his mother-in-law had been abducted from her home in Sao Paulo in 2016. She was found by police and returned home unharmed.
Mr Ecclestone has not been charged with any offence. He paid about £1,000 to be freed on bail and was allowed to continue to Portugal. He was travelling with Fabiana Flosi, his wife, and their son Ace.
Born in Suffolk, Mr Ecclestone made an estimated fortune of £2.5billion over his 40 years as chief executive of the Formula One Group.
He married Ms Flosi, 44, a marketing director from Brazil, at a ski chalet in Switzerland in 2012, three years after meeting her at the Brazilian Grand Prix.