Finland Times

 

Sunny Car Center Third advertising column along the road in Hämeenlinna on September 3, 2014 at the spot where the merchant is planning a large concentration of dealerships. The plot is still owned by the city, and hämeenlinna kind of car dealer financing plan raises suspicions. Photo – Lehtikuva.

Hameenlinna city gave Sunny Car Centre time till Tuesday midnight to pay more than 8 million euros owed for the acquisition of a construction plot.

 

However, the money had not been cashed in by 3:00 pm, said Hämeenlinna Deputy Mayor Juha Isosuo to the news agency STT.

 

The city is due to take the matter to the court, if the payment is defaulted.

 

Sunny Car Centre is an adventurous car showroom enterprise led by Markku Ritaluoma, a businessman and managing director of the project.

 

The project intends to set up car showrooms and other services related to motoring under one roof at a strategic site occupying 80,000 square metres of land in the outskirts of Hämeenlinna. The project envisages becoming the biggest car business in Europe.

 

The company had previous been given an extension up to the end of September to pay the money.

 

The project raised attention after it had emerged that its funding was to come from Africa.

 

In May, a bank notified the police about a 336,000-euro transfer from Sunny Car Centre to a southern African bank account. The police stopped the transfer and warned Sunny Car Centre that it could be a scam. 

 

Despite the advice from the police, Ritaluoma wanted to go ahead with the investment and hence the bank transfer was made.

 

The project was supposed to pay more than 8 million euros for the purchase of the construction site by July 4.

 

In August, Ritaluoma informed the Hämeenlinna City Council that the person who was supposed to bankroll the project was a widow of a Zambian ex-president. In late August, Ritaluoma admitted that he paid an African human rights organisation to investigate how the Zambian media had come up with misleading information.

 

In September, Ritaluoma accused two Hämeenlinna politicians of leaking information. The two denied the accusation and said they had informed the police to launch an investigation.