Bernie Ecclestone, 95, Detained In Portugal Over Undocumented Shotgun, Denies Formal Arrest For Second Time

LISBON, Portugal — Former Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone was stopped by police at a small airfield near Lisbon this week after arriving on a private jet with an undocumented shotgun, marking the second time in roughly four years the 95-year-old has faced questioning over a firearm while traveling internationally.

Ecclestone landed at Tires Aerodrome, a small airfield near Cascais roughly 20 miles outside Lisbon, on Monday after flying in from Switzerland alongside his wife, Fabiana Flosi, who is 46 years his junior. According to multiple British outlets, Ecclestone had already passed through general customs without incident when an officer from the airport division of the Portuguese Public Security Police separately searched his bag and discovered a shotgun with no import paperwork attached.

Ecclestone told the Daily Mail he had brought the weapon along for a clay-pigeon shooting event he planned to take part in over the weekend.

"I brought shotguns to do clay shooting with a friend. They were all permitted," Ecclestone said. "Upon arrival, we went through customs inspection, and the officers said, 'No problem,' and let us pass. Later, a police officer asked if they could search my bag. They requested a firearm possession certificate, and I said, 'I've never traveled with such a document.'"

Police informed Ecclestone that he was missing what is informally known in Portugal as a "blue book," the documentation formally called a European Firearms Pass, which is required to bring a firearm into the country, even for sporting purposes. Portugal maintains some of the strictest firearm regulations in Europe, and anyone transporting a weapon across its borders, regardless of intended use, must carry that document, issued by the national authority of their home country, identifying the weapon and confirming the holder's legal right to possess it.

Speaking separately to the Press Association, Ecclestone described the standoff at the airport as stretching on for roughly an hour, involving customs officers and four separate police officers.

"I was going to take part in Portugal in a clay pigeon shooting competition, which I only knew about a few days ago because Fabiana met someone when she was coming back from Brazil to Portugal," Ecclestone said. "So all this nonsense went on. We went back to the customs, and the police had complained to customs, and the customs officer said, 'You need to surrender the gun here in Lisbon and then we will look at it there, and do you want to import it? And if so, you will have to pay duty on it and ask for a temporary import, and we will deal with it like that.' So I said, 'Well we'd better do that.'"

Ecclestone firmly denied that the incident amounted to a formal arrest, despite reporting from Portuguese outlet Correio da Manha stating that his detention had been carried out by officers from the PSP's Airport Division.

"No. The police were very helpful and doing all they could to stop us from having to do what we had to do," Ecclestone told the Press Association.

The matter was ultimately resolved after Ecclestone's wife traveled to Lisbon to formally surrender the firearm and handle the necessary paperwork on his behalf. Speaking to the Daily Mail about the resolution, Ecclestone described the overall ordeal as "wall-to-wall aggravation," while expressing confidence the situation could still be sorted out properly.

"But it seems it can be put right," Ecclestone said. "Fabi has gone to Lisbon to surrender the gun, or pay the tax or whatever you need to bring it in, or to hand it over in the end. I said I would go too, but I didn't as it happened, and I am sitting at home waiting for the situation to be put to bed."

Portuguese police have offered little public confirmation of the incident since it occurred. The Daily Mail reported that neither the arresting officer nor broader police and customs authorities have been willing to publicly confirm or comment on the matter.

This marks the second time in roughly four years that Ecclestone has faced legal trouble over an undocumented firearm while traveling internationally. In May 2022, he was detained at Viracopos Airport in Campinas, near São Paulo, Brazil, after federal police discovered an unloaded .32-caliber LW Seecamp pistol in his luggage while boarding a private flight to Switzerland. At the time, São Paulo's state public security secretariat confirmed in a statement that a businessman had been detained for illegal firearm possession, without initially naming him directly, though Ecclestone was later identified as the individual involved. He was released after paying 6,060 Brazilian reals, then equivalent to roughly $1,240, and told police he had purchased the pistol from an unidentified Formula One mechanic approximately five years earlier, keeping the weapon on a farm in the São Paulo countryside for personal security purposes.

Speaking to Reuters following the 2022 Brazil incident, Ecclestone characterized the episode as a minor misunderstanding rather than a serious legal matter, joking at the time about the unexpected publicity it generated.

Ecclestone built his fortune and reputation over four decades as the driving force behind modern Formula One's commercial structure, having acquired the Brabham F1 team early in his career before helping establish the Formula One Constructors' Association in 1974, a foundation that would eventually become the Formula One Management organization he led for decades. He significantly expanded the sport's global reach and revenue through broadcasting rights sales before stepping down as FOM chairman in 2017.

Ecclestone has also drawn public attention over the years for his personal life, having married three times. Following an earlier marriage and the birth of his eldest daughter in the 1950s, and a second marriage in 1985 that produced two more children, Ecclestone divorced in 2009 before meeting and eventually marrying Fabiana Flosi in 2012, with the couple welcoming a son together in 2020.

With the Portuguese firearm matter now apparently resolved through the surrender of the weapon and completion of the required paperwork, Ecclestone appears to be moving past the incident, even as questions remain over the exact legal classification of what transpired at Tires Aerodrome and whether any further formal proceedings might still follow in the weeks ahead.