Arnold Schwarzenegger Forced to Pay $10,000, Detained in Customs for 3 Hours For Not Declaring Luxury Watch The actor and former governor of California was detained at the Munich airport on Wednesday.
By Emily Rella •
He will most certainly not be back.
Actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was detained at Munich airport over the weekend due to an extremely expensive watch he neglected to declare at customs while traveling to the country.
The watch, which was supposed to be auctioned off at a charity event in Kitzbuhel, Austria on Thursday, delayed the "Terminator" star by three hours. He said he was not given the proper form before entering to declare the possession.
Schwarzenegger reportedly agreed to prepay over $10,000 in taxes on the watch but due to customs being unable to process his credit card, he was forced to withdraw money from an ATM, which then hit a withdrawal limit.
Related: US Customs Closes Early, Travelers Pay Thousands to Get Home
Authorities then tried to take the 76-year-old to a bank only to find that it was closed, so another officer brought in a new credit card machine, which eventually worked.
And no, this was not the plot of a new Schwarzenegger movie.
"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," an unnamed source told PEOPLE.
Schwarzenegger's nonprofit, the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, plans to properly report the watch once it's auctioned off on Thursday at the Dinner & Auction for Environmental Protection at the Stanglwirt.
The Munich Main Customs Office, meanwhile, said that it has initiated criminal proceedings against the actor for tax evasion since he did not claim the item at customs, per TMZ.
According to the German customs website, travelers must "declare funds of 10,000 euros or more" even though personal possessions brought with passengers are exempt if they are considered personal property.
Related: The 10 Worst Airports in the U.S.
However, the law states, that for "valuable objects such as jewelry, expensive digital cameras, and so on, you may be asked follow a special procedure."
Still, the actor seems to be in high spirits.
"All is well and we look forward to a very successful charity event," a rep for Schwarzenegger told PEOPLE.
