He didn't declare it on his customs form and the tax man wants his import duty. Simple as that. Throw in problems with the credit card machine they initially used to run his payment and not being able to withdraw 35k Euros from the ATM with the time difference making your bank closed so you can't get the limit raised and boom, it's now a multi-hour thing.

I swear, we really need critical thinking skills here, the media is out to make us look like crazy conspiracy theorists and jumping to the least likely conclusion plays right into that.