Arnold Schwarzenegger facing criminal tax proceedings after failing to declare pricey watch at Munich airport

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was detained for three hours at a Munich airport on Wednesday, after failing to declare a luxury Swiss watch.

The 76-year-old movie star was reportedly transporting the Audemars Piguet timepiece to auction off for his charity in Kitzbuhel, Austria, reports CNN.

Schwarzenegger is now facing “criminal tax proceedings,” according to a Munich Customs press officer, who said the watch “should have been registered” as an imported item.

“He did not declare a product. A product that was imported from non-EU countries in order to remain in the EU. And this process applies to everyone,” said the officer.

Schwarzenegger was never asked to fill out a declaration form from the beginning, but was said to have been very cooperative with police at the airport. The actor answered “every question from customs officers honestly,” according to a source close to the actor.

He also agreed to prepay potential taxes for the item, even after officers failed to get a credit card machine to work and ended up taking him to a bank to withdraw cash from an ATM, the source added.

However, the ATM apparently had a limit that was too low and the bank itself was closed, so Schwarzenegger returned to the airport, where another officer brought a new credit card machine that worked. After the lengthy process, he was eventually able to continue on with his travel plans.

“He cooperated at every step even though it was an incompetent shakedown, a total comedy of errors that would make a very funny cop movie,” the source said.

The taxes ended up totaling over $10,600, reports TMZ. The auction for the watch is still planned to take place on Thursday as part of an event to benefit the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, a nonprofit which supports clean energy efforts worldwide.

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