Jan 22, 2008 12:45 am US/Pacific
Wrecked Malibu Ferrari Driver To Be Deported
The $3 Million Car Was Going 199 MPH At The Time Of The Crash
MALIBU, Calif. (CBS) ―
Bo Steffan Eriksson, who is behind bars in connection with a vehicle crash on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, in which the $3 million Ferrari Enzo he was driving was destroyed, is to be deported.
A Swedish newspaper quoted Eriksson's wife Sunday as saying he had been transferred to the federal detention facility in Los Angeles Harbor on an immigration hold, and will be put on a plane to his native Sweden or Germany, where he also has a home.
His deportation will come as soon as arrangements can be made, and is a result of his decision to voluntarily leave the United States, his wife told a Stockholm paper.
Eriksson was reportedly brought to the federal lockup from Corcoran State Prison in the San Joaquin Valley on Dec. 17.
"Everything was ready before Christmas," wife Nicole Persson told the
Stockholm newspaper Veckans Affaerer. "It took a while for the Swedish consulate to prepare a new passport. But he's expected to be on his way very soon."
Deputies used computers and laser beam measurements to conclude that Eriksson was driving the Ferrari 199 miles per hour down PCH in the early- morning hours of Feb. 21, 2006.
At Decker Canyon Road, the car went airborne and -- with the exception of its passenger cabin -- disintegrated into thousands of pieces along Highway 1.
Eriksson and his passenger escaped injury, but blamed the crash on a mystery man named "Dietrich" who had supposedly run off into the hills. Sheriff's deputies doubted that story, but a search was made for Dietrich, whom Eriksson blamed for the wreck.
Photos and video of the wrecked car were shown around the world. "Don't take my picture, I'm with Homeland Security," Eriksson told a photographer from a Malibu newspaper.
The Farrari was financed by British banks, but Eriksson reportedly did not make payments on it, and it was about to be repossessed when Eriksson destroyed it. Police in London said it was one of three high-end collectible cars that Eriksson had illegally had flown into Los Angeles in the cargo holds of Virgin Atlantic 747s.
Shortly after the Ferrari wreck, sheriff's deputies said they had no evidence that Eriksson had committed any felony in the United States. But Eriksson's wife caused him to be arrested when she when she was found with documents detailing her husband's financial dealings into another embezzled million-dollar car.
She drove the car three times around the block, past a Beverly Hills police officer, before he noticed it had no U.S. license plates and pulled her over. The documents in the front seat showed that British banks had not been paid for the three expensive cars, so Eriksson was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement and fraud.
In November 2006, a Los Angeles jury deadlocked on those charges, but a week later he pleaded no contest to embezzlement and being a felon with a firearm and was sentenced to three years' in state prison.
Eriksson's fate in Europe was not known. He reportedly headed a violent criminal gang that extorted money from merchants and ran prostitutes and drug sales in his home town of Uppsala, Sweden, in the 1980s.
He also allegedly stole high-end cars from the French Riviera for sale in Russia during the 1990s, shipping drugs back into France on the return trips.
Eriksson became involved with an ill-fated electronic game venture in London, and when it collapsed moved to Beverly Hills and began frequenting nightclubs.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
