Yet Another Overseas Purchasing Question (UK to US)

[railmonster2914]

Hello all. I'm looking to purchase my very first Rolex (214270-0003 Mk. 2 Explorer) from a London-based seller on C24. The seller has 151 "trusted checkouts" so I'm fairly confident he's legit.

The reason I want to purchase the watch from the seller, is that it is fully-stickered, which is rare these days for a Rolex. I asked the seller for pictures which he/she willingly provided, and the watch is indeed stickered. I asked the seller if the stickers will not be removed if I buy the watch - the question was more for him as a dealer, though he interpreted my question differently. The seller said that there's no guarantee that the stickers wouldn't be removed because, in his/her own words, "the watch will be stopped and checked at customs that they will not prove any of the stickers". The seller claims to have heard that this has happened in the past.

So I did some homework regarding potential issues having shipped Rolexes from the UK to the US and found some scary post on WUS back in 2010 regarding Rolex USA having sole rights to import Rolexes stateside and that watches imported into the country outside their scope were subject to confiscation and some firm scolding from them regarding their sole rights to import.

I did some more research and it turns out those restrictions have been relaxed (thread is here on TRF but couldn't link to it because it's my first post). Does anybody have a link proving that the restrictions are not there anymore? The links on the aforementioned thread are dead. The seller admits he's not a fan of shipping expensive watches out of the country and that it's my call if I want to take a risk or not.

Also, does UK customs typically open packages with expensive watches in them prior to shipping to the US?

Now, I've bought some watches from the UK before (Christopher Ward Sandhurst) and have never had any issues, although it's a relatively less expensive watch.

The Mk. 2 Explorer that I'm planning to buy is less than US $9k in cost and yes, I'm definitely willing to pay taxes.

Any help or clarification regarding my questions above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

P.S. Sorry if this is the umpteenth time something like this has been posted here, I did see similar posts but none addressed the part about UK customs opening outbound packages. Cheers!