Using the word Yacht loosely...

"he said it was a legal shipment that was being transshipped through Curacao and officials in the island had been advised in advance that it was coming as part of normal security protocols."

Uh Ah...

Loose lips,,, stink...

,Ralph

Delivering the goods for the new yacht purchase... had to be completed offshore to avoid import duty and VAT... standard business practice.

Do you really want to take a check or hope the wire takes? Maybe NOT!

Funny years ago when I was wet behind the ears... did a purchase taking delivery of used European boat from Canada in United States... to avoid the fees for taking delivery in Canada... first wire transfer to the Swiss bank went into the wrong account... which took quite awhile to sort out with the Swiss bankers... then US customs determined that NAFTA did not apply to a european boat which had been imported to Canada and duty paid there but not in US... as I am a US citizen though was not planning on using in US and it was only a pass through... I STILL got stuck with the duty on what the "new" from europe to USA... in the customs ruling (they counted the time in the customs while it sorted out) though it was in the country for the delivery only passing on to europe... then when it arrived back in France local authorities noticed about three days in... I had a "new" boat in the slip... then looking at the documents determined... I had imported from US and the "value" was the "new boat" value the US authorities used... so the VAT was figured on the new price... not what I paid... plus the duty paid to the US... so it cost more than new... French built boat, too!

Lesson learned...

A mate of mine worked for a large Oil Company in Columbia. He bought his wife a brand-new, top of the line washing machine for the new house. We packed it onto the aftdeck of his steel trawler yacht, all clamped down with ratchet straps.

On his trip from Venezuela to Columbia, he heard the call of nature (and his bladder) to the aftdeck very early in the morning. He looked around in the gloom and something was wrong.

He turned the decklights on and there it was, gone. Yep, somehow in the middle of the night, at 12.5 knots, the little buggers had stolen his washing machine off the deck. Not washed off or loosened, but all by sticky fingers into a fast boat. We joked with him about this for weeks but he swears the machine just vanished.

Local Taxes

Import duty...