Mechanic gets two years in prison for selling Ferrari engine

A mechanic from Michigan just got two years of prison time after selling one of the rarest Ferrari engines in the world. Just a handful of these prized, timeless, and absurdly expensive Ferrari Lampredi engines were produced by the Italian automotive icon in a production run from 1951 to 1957. This Ferrari engine was the result of a collaboration between Enzo Ferrari and Aurelio Lampredi with the single intention of high-performance racing. So how does a US mechanic get his hands on such history and get in trouble for doing so?

Terry Myr, a 71-year-old auto technician who (used to) work on exotic car repairs got his hands on one of these engines and sold it in 2009 for a whopping $610,000 to a private buyer. So why did this shop jockey just get sentenced to two years in prison? The feds got him the same way they nailed Al Capone: tax evasion. Apparently when this sly mechanic made the sale of this extremely rare Ferrari part for over $600 grand he requested that the buyer pay him by direct-wire transfer into a secret corporate bank account he created just a week prior. On top of all that prosecutors also found that he had evaded paying a total of $738,904 in back taxes spanning over a decade.

Apparently after he sold his piece of Italian automotive history and received funds in his private account, he spent almost $400,000 on gold and silver coins. Ferrari Lampredi engines were featured on some of the Italian automaker’s most desirable models ever, including the Ferrari 250, the Tipo 500 race car, the 500 Mondial, and the 750 Monza.

source: www.reuters.com