It was the ultimate face-lift: a sporty red Ferrari F355 on the outside, a used Pontiac engine inside.

That was enough, apparently, to entice wannabe Ferrari owners to plunk down €20,000, or about $30,000, for the chance to own an approximation of the real thing.

A few days ago, Italian tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, busted up a ring of auto-body shops across the country that were trafficking in one of the most high-end and high-priced counterfeit cars of all time.

The ring operated in a dozen cities from near the Alps in the north to Sicily in the south. Tax police rounded up seven completed fake Ferraris, as well as another seven that were still being decked out. Some of the counterfeit cars had already been sold. They also seized numerous spare parts, some of which were genuine Ferrari.



Copying a Ferrari seems particularly brazen. The company makes about 6,000 cars a year, and waiting lists for new models can run years. Most cost more than $200,000, but prices can soar far beyond that depending on the level of customization. The company boasts that its engineering (much of which it also uses on its championship Formula One racing team) is second to none.

Last year, fake Ferraris were nabbed by the tax police in Sardinia and Rome. In 2006, the European Commissioner for Justice protested publicly that fake Ferraris were popping up in China.

In this respect, a few days ago, a fake Ferrari sports car made in Thailand has become the centre piece of an exhibition in Brussels warning against the dangers of pirated goods.

The Ferrari P4 - of which only three were made, in 1967 - was made in a back street factory in Thailand and is powered by a Subaru engine.



The latest figures from the World Customs Organization show that all types of counterfeits result in about $500 billion to $600 billion in lost sales annually, which is about 5% of global trade.