Bernie Ecclestone Addresses Shotgun Incident in Portugal

Bernie Ecclestone has dismissed claims he was arrested in Portugal after arriving with a shotgun, insisting the incident amounted to little more than an administrative snag over paperwork.

The 95-year-old former Formula 1 supremo landed at Tires Aerodrome in Cascais on Monday, flying in from Switzerland with a shotgun he said he planned to use in a clay pigeon shooting competition.

Waiting for him on arrival were four police officers and customs officials. They stopped him, questioned him and asked about the weapon he was carrying.

Ecclestone said he walked over to the officers and tried to keep the exchange as straightforward as possible.

“I went to see the police and said, ‘What can I do for you?’ And they said, ‘We would like some information on this gun you brought in’,” he told the Press Association.

The British businessman explained that he had already transported the same shotgun from England to Switzerland without trouble and expected the journey into Portugal to be just as routine, especially at an airport where, he said, staff know him “very well”.

This time, the rules bit back.

Ecclestone was questioned for about an hour and told he did not have the correct documentation to import the weapon into the country. With no valid paperwork, there was only one outcome: he had to hand it over.

He said he was required to “surrender” the shotgun to the authorities, but stressed that the officers involved handled the matter calmly and professionally, describing the Portuguese police as “very helpful”.

Reports that the former F1 chief had been arrested quickly surfaced, turning a paperwork issue into a headline-grabbing controversy. Ecclestone rejected those claims outright, maintaining that he was neither detained nor taken into custody, only stopped, checked and relieved of a gun he was not legally cleared to bring in.