LOS ANGELES - It's the smash up that car lovers can't seem to get enough of _ an exquisite red Ferrari, rare by even its own lofty standards, gets shredded in a 162 mph crash on Pacific Coast Highway.
First came a simple question: How could anyone plow their car into a utility pole at that speed and survive with just a cut lip, as Swedish businessman Bo Stefan Eriksson did?
From there, the case has developed more turns than the winding route authorities say Eriksson couldn't navigate on the morning of Feb. 21.
First there was a mysterious German man named Dietrich. Eriksson told authorities he was Dietrich's passenger _ that he let Dietrich take the $1.5 million Ferrari Enzo out for a pre-dawn spin even though he didn't know Dietrich's last name or where to find him after he wrecked the car.
Things got even more odd when two "Homeland Security" men showed up after the crash, demanding to talk to Eriksson. It turned out they actually worked security for the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority, a small bus company in the suburbs.
Eriksson told authorities he was a deputy commissioner with the authority's anti-terrorism division, although most of his previous experience with law enforcement appears to be the five years he spent in a Swedish prison in the 1990s for assault, extortion and other crimes.
On Tuesday, authorities raided the headquarters of the bus company, took one man into custody and seized guns, badges and police jackets. Eriksson's tie to the company is under investigation.
Digging deeper, authorities uncovered Eriksson's connections to a bankrupt European video game company he once helped run, his convictions for assault and other crimes in Sweden.
In jail on a federal immigration hold, Eriksson was due in court Monday for arraignment on charges of embezzlement, grand theft, drunk driving and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The investigation has widened to include Carl Freer, a former business associate of Eriksson's and a member of the transit authority's "anti-terrorism unit." He is accused of posing as a police officer to buy a gun; Freer's attorney has denied wrongdoing on behalf of his client.
It all began with the wreck of a car so exclusive it was named after company founder Enzo Ferrari. Only 400 were made between 2002 and 2004.
Eriksson, 44, somehow wound up with two Enzos, as well as a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. Police have confiscated the cars and accuse him of stealing all three, which they say were worth $3.8 million.
His lawyer didn't return a call for comment last week, but he said at a pretrial hearing earlier in the month that Eriksson wasn't trying to steal the cars when he shipped them from Great Britain under other people's names. He said Eriksson, who still owed more than $500,000 on the cars, only quit paying the banks after his company, Gizmondo Europe Ltd., went broke last year.
The Ferrari crash wasn't Eriksson's first problem with expensive cars. He has been charged with driving a Porsche Cayenne that rear-ended a Ford Explorer on Jan. 4 _ more than a month before the Ferrari spill.
Ultimately, it was his penchant for fast cars that landed Eriksson in jail here. If he'd crashed a Volkswagen Beetle instead of a Ferrari, he might have remained under the radar.
"I would rank it as probably the most incredible exotic car crash in history," said Greg Carlson, whose Web site,
http://www.wreckedexotics.com, keeps track of such things.
Ferrari crash on Pacific Coast Highway
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