Singapore denies Arrivabene littering reports

Singapore authorities have rejected reports that Maurizio Arrivabene was detained and fined for discarding a cigarette butt last week.

Based on information from the Spanish dailies ABC and Marca, and repeated by Britain’s Telegraph, we reported earlier that the Ferrari chief was in custody for six hours and fined 1000 Singapore dollars.

The city-state’s stance on street littering is infamous, with stringent enforcement and harsh penalties in place for infractions.

But the local Channel NewsAsia contacted Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) and said the reported incident involving Arrivabene never happened.

"Reports in the international media on this matter are bogus," the agency reportedly said.

Singapore authorities also played down reports that last weekend’s night race saw the lowest ever spectator turnout in the event’s nine-year history.

"That’s really more a reflection of the global environment in terms of economic uncertainty and so on," government minister S Iswaran is quoted by the local Today publication.

"It’s a little bit like in 2009, when you had the global financial crisis," he added. "There was a major correction and then it went up again quite strongly."