Arnold Schwarzenegger was briefly detained at an airport in Munich after a customs debacle on Wednesday.
Customs officials told The Guardian that the Austrian-born actor and former governor of California was held at the airport for several hours after failing to declare a luxury watch while travelling from the United States to Germany.
The bodybuilder-turned-actor intended to auction the custom Piguet timepiece during a fundraising dinner at his World Climate Summit in Kitzbühel, Austria, on Thursday.
The German newspaper Bild reported that Schwarzenegger was released after agreeing to pay €35,000 (around £30,000) in taxes and fines.
But forking over the tariff money proved its own ordeal, according to sources with direct knowledge who spoke to TMZ about the incident.
After authorities unsuccessfully tried to charge the Terminator actor’s credit card for an hour, they had to seek out not one, but two different ATMs to get the required amount of cash.
Schwarzenegger was let on his way after about three hours with customs.
The action star expressed frustration at the situation to Bild, telling the newspaper: “This is the problem that Germany is suffering from. You can no longer see the forest for the trees.”
Thomas Meister, a spokesman for the main customs office in Munich, said that his agency had initiated the appropriate “criminal tax proceedings” against Schwarzenegger, however.
“The watch should have been registered because it is an import,” Meister told Bild.