The biggest car heist in history: How 1,000 Volvos went missing. Volvo 144

Jaydiesel · Post by **Jaydiesel** » 23 Feb 2026, 20:19

So I saw the article about North Korea ripping off Volvo back in 1974 for 1,000 144. The article was from Volvocars website in Australian.
I never knew this happen. I looked around MVS and didn't see anything about it when I typed in North Korean Volvo or Korean Volvo.

https://www.volvocars.com/au/news/indus ... t-missing/

Parts of the article are funny to me. Like, why would a car company even put it in print they got ripped off. Then going farther down the article, its like a ad for the Volvo Lending Arm for Australian customers.

Post by **matthew1** » 23 Feb 2026, 21:55

That's a crazy story and I'm a longtime fan of it. In the 70s my dad loaned a John Deere scraper or two to Czechloslovakia and they never returned them or paid for them, but the Volvo thing is far worse.

Post by **volvolugnut** » 24 Feb 2026, 08:24

Some things never change even today. Play with snakes and you get bit.
volvolugnut

Post by **abscate** » 25 Feb 2026, 06:35

The outstanding bill is about 2% of the DRNK GDP. I wonder what accounting rules would say where this would go on AR?

Post by **matthew1** » 25 Feb 2026, 08:16

Interesting question. At what point is a write-off? For personal credit it would have been immediate. For corporate credit it could be many years or decade+. For government, longer yet. But on the other hand you have common sense that says it's NK you ain't collecting nor are you able to repossess the cars.

Post by **abscate** » 25 Feb 2026, 11:03

Any decent GAAP audit would make you write that off as uncollectable bad debt years ago. I wonder if there is some accounting trick holding 400M in AR on the books in Swedish rules ?

Post by **matthew1** » 25 Feb 2026, 12:24

I think they should go grab em. Letting this go on another half century will only embolden ruthless dictators everywhere.

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