Buying Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Maybachs and flaunting wealth seems like a good idea until Bulgaria, one of the most impoverished members of the European Union, decides to have police stop and check expensive cars and investigate owners for tax fraud and money laundering.




I’m sure Bulgaria’s 1 percent have nothing to hide and nobody to fear but, just in case, the country’s chief prosecutor has ordered that 435 registered Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maybach, Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars be stopped on the street and the owners checked over the next three months, according to France24. More from the report:

Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor Monday ordered checks of all 435 luxury Maybach, Bentley, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce and Ferrari vehicles, cruising the streets of the European Union’s poorest country in recent years in striking contrast to most residents’ far more modest bangers. “The aim of the checks is to determine the origin of the money for purchasing these vehicles and if it came as a result from tax fraud or money laundering,” chief prosecutor spokeswoman Rumyana Arnaudova told journalists on Monday. Arnaudova did not say why the prosecution focused specifically on the five makes, only mentioning that “their price is extremely high.”﻿




The government is also cracking down on big spenders in real estate, checking out a few hundred people who spent over $300,000 on an apartment or house in 2015 and 2016. What’s next? Investigating every restaurant that doesn’t serve food?

According to the report, Bulgaria has been pressured by the European Commission, an institution which “manages the day-to-day of the European Union,” to turn around its sustained failure at fighting off organized crime and putting an end to corruption. The police are starting by going where the money is perhaps the most obvious.

It might be worth checking out Bulgarian Craigslist over the next few months to see if anybody is desperate to get rid of anything nice, and in the meantime, I’m sure the luxury-customized Dacia market is about to peak.