https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2022/03/05/bolivia-is-awash-with-contraband-cars-from-japan

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[                    ]
The AmericasMar 5th 2022 edition

Honk for impunity
Bolivia is awash with contraband cars from Japan

Around 25,000 so-called chutos enter the country every year

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Mar 5th 2022

Challapata

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SIX DAYS a week not much happens in Challapata, but every Sunday the
town's main square fills with Japanese cars. Few, if any, have
licence plates. They are chutos, or contraband cars. Most have been
shipped from Japan to Chile, and then smuggled in.

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Perhaps 25,000 chutos enter Bolivia a year; around 60,000 cars are
imported legally. The business took off in 2008, when the government
banned imports of cars of more than five years old. The old bangers
continued to clatter in, illegally.

The fair in Challapata is the biggest in the country. The chuteros
make little attempt to hide themselves. Mechanics fix suspension
wrecked by the drive over the mountains from Chile; others move
steering wheels from right to left. Chutos are advertised on
Facebook, along with fake licence plates. Younger chuteros post
videos of themselves on TikTok, a video-sharing app, racing over the
salt flats, set to their own music genre, chutocumbia, in which
singers croon about the hardship they endure to feed their families.

The government has tried to beef up controls along the border with
Chile. But Bolivia is poor and the border is long; the flow of chutos
has not abated. Smugglers say they pay $100 a car for border guards
to look away. Police who catch a chuto inside Bolivia can be bribed,
too.

A chuto costs around half or even a third as much as a legally
imported car. Buyers avoid not only import tariffs, but also an
annual road tax. The government is wary of cracking down, mostly
because of the sheer number of people who would be affected.

Instead in 2011 the government allowed owners of chutos to register
their cars, provided they could prove the vehicle had not been stolen
in another country. Those doing so had to start paying road tax, but
would no longer risk extortion if caught by the police. Ruben
Ferrufino, a spokesperson for a group of chuto owners, is pushing for
another amnesty. If not, his group is threatening to impose road
blocks--another common sight in Bolivia.

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print
edition under the headline "Honk for impunity"

Reuse this contentThe Trust Project

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