Former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has denied he was arrested for carrying a gun before boarding a flight in Sao Paulo.
Ecclestone said the firearm, a LW Seecamp .32, was not loaded and it was packed in his luggage by accident.
The 91-year-old claimed he spent several hours with local police reporting the incident, because the gun had not been registered.
Speaking to the PA news agency, Ecclestone said: “No, I wasn’t arrested, I was questioned.
“I had a small, tiny little handgun, like a woman carries in her handbag in case someone tries to jump them.
“I got it from somebody years ago, a mechanic in Formula One, who said it is good to carry in your pocket in Brazil because they are mugging people all the time out there, and you can say bugger off.
“It has no bullets or anything, and it was just a show-thing. Whether it would have worked or not, I don’t know because it has never happened to me. I only ever had it in the house and I have never walked around with it.
“But I was mucking about with it at home, jokingly pretending to arrest somebody, and then I took my shirt off.
“I left my things to be packed and that shirt was packed in with my luggage.
“When we got to the airport, I was asked to come to immigration because they had scanned our luggage and they said it looks like there is a gun.
“They said we won’t open anything until you are there. I arrived, we opened the bag, we all looked through the luggage, we couldn’t find it, and eventually we found it.
“I told them what it was and they said now we have got a problem because it has to be reported.
“The gun is legal in Brazil but where they were upset is that it is not registered. The offence was not having the gun but that it wasn’t registered.”
Ecclestone, who is now in Portugal, said he had to pay 6,000 Brazilian reals (£1,000), to the local authorities, and the gun was confiscated.
He added: “We spent forever trying to sort it out to report things, and by then the airport was closed, and we couldn’t leave until five in the morning [on Thursday] so I spent a pleasant few hours with the police.
“But it was all very friendly, very nice and there were lots of Formula One enthusiasts to speak to.
“They wouldn’t take dollars so it had to be local currency and it was 6,000 reals which was nothing.
“It was all very embarrassing for everybody – a lot of aggravation for nothing.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here