When a high-profile ride like a Rolls-Royce Phantom goes missing, we imagine it winds up on a shadowy slow boat to South America, or categorically corrupt enclave in Eastern Europe. The kind of place where washing a title is as easy as washing a car. But that's not what happened here.
ALSO SEE: BMW Completely Gives Up, Accepts Ugly As Its Only Design Motif
The aforementioned Roller led a far more interesting life, which reads like a screenplay as opposed to a CarFax. Today, it lives in a Federal impound facility. But after leaving Coventry for America, it was leased to a fictitious starlette—via three agencies in two states—chauffeured Snoop Dogg to the funeral of fellow West Coaster Nate Dogg, and played a starring role in complicated campaign to run cocaine from Los Angeles to Detroit.
The part about the blow is, unsurprisingly, what interested the FBI.
DON'T MISS: Audi Reveals R8 e-tron Piloted Driving Concept
All the sordid details are available on The Detroit News, which outlines how the Feds managed to—mostly—crack the case. And while reporter Robert Snell should be commended here, we should issue a warning about the absolutely dismal split-screen formatting the paper saddled the story with. It's a total dumpster fire of presentation, and if you're even mildly curious about Internet publishing it's still worth checking out as an example of what not to do.
Obviously, we're curious about the loose ends, so we'll be monitoring this story. Stay tuned.
_______________________________________