Under pressure of a police investigation, the rich jerk who owned the cars seen tearing through Beverly Hills this weekend has fled the country, according to the State Department. The yellow LaFerrari and white Porsche, stars of the viral video, are also M.I.A..
The owner has been identified as Sheik Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar, the L.A. Times reports. Al-Thani was a racing enthusiast, and had invested more than $50 million into Al-Anabi Racing over the last six years, before mysteriously cutting off the sponsorship funding earlier this year.
Beverly Hills Police Department Chief Dominick Rivetti said at a news conference Thursday that the city will apply the law equally, regardless of "who you are, who you know or where you are from." This is vehement language coming from the authorities, who have admitted that the likelihood of gathering up enough evidence to charge the drivers is very slim. It's not clear whether Al-Thani was driving one of the cars himself; the video and photos taken didn't capture the drivers' faces. But those involved could be facing other legal issues: according to Rivetti, it's against federal law to claim diplomatic immunity when you don't actually have it. Plus, the LaFerrari—which had been brought in from Qatar—failed to register with the State Department.
Adam Bornstein, the car enthusiast who posted the now-viral video online, told the L.A. Times that the whole incident was "a spur-of-the-moment thing...for the whole car community, it's definitely a sad representation...Everybody's upset that this does not accurately represent what it's like."
