Popular YouTuber Cody Detwiler spent almost half a million dollars on a Ferrari which then engulfed in a fireball as he filmed a video of him driving it. Now he’s been charged with tax evasion on it
A YouTuber with more than 10million subscribers has been arrested for evading taxes on a flash motor he allegedly set on fire for a video. Cody Detwiler, 27, paid $400,000 (around £300,000) for a 2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo in 2023.
He used in a ‘durability test’ series on his WhistlinDiesel YouTube channel, which saw the car completely wrecked in a fireball during a video titled: “The Fastest Way to Lose Half a Million Dollars. My Ferrari is Gone.”
Two years on, he has been charged with ‘unlawfully and wilfully’ evading ‘tax due to the State of Tennessee in an amount of five hundred dollars ($500) or more,’ court documents show.
The charges of tax evasion are a Class E felony. If found guilty, he could face up to six years in prison and a maximum fine of $3,000 (around £2,280). The same charges were also placed against Detwiler’s business, WHISTLINDIESEL, LLC.
The documents directly cite the sports car, but do not explicitly mention its appearance in his videos. Detwiler posted his mugshot and images of him being taken away by police on his Instagram page with the caption: “Won so big they thought I was cheating.”
He later posted a video of him being escorted in handcuffs by a police officer while talking about his experience being arrested. He wrote: “Yes I was arrested and it’s 100% real. Six cops showed up at my door and said they had a warrant for ‘Tax Evasion.’ They didn’t explain why or how or when, and I still don’t know.
“After the cops squeezing the handcuffs super tight I got taken to jail and spent a few hours there until my team bailed me out. I got a cell and everything. I have always paid all of my taxes and I’m still not sure what this is all for, I didn’t get a notice of any sort leading up to this. There is a court date set and I will give active updates.”
The Ferrari in Detwiler’s videos had a Montana license plate, suggesting that is where it was registered. It is a popular loophole among supercar owners as Montana has no sales tax on vehicles. The sales tax in Tennessee is 7%, the Daily Mail reports.
The Ferrari appeared twice on the WhistlinDiesel channel in which Detwiler drifted with the sports car on dirt roads, cut one of the mirrors off and pelted the windows with fruit and rocks in a video with 7.1million views.
In a second video, he drives the Ferrari through a dry cornfield and highly flammable husks appear to make their way into the car’s wheels and engine, which begin to ignite while Detwiler is still behind the wheel in a video that has been seen a whopping 21 million times.
He and another person in the passenger seat quickly get out as the fire spreads and becomes uncontrollable. A rental van that his team was filming from and parked right next to the burning Ferrari also ignited, and both vehicles were destroyed.
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