4 Boeing 707 for $50,000. Is that possible? I'm helping a friend with an article on some issues in my country, mostly related to corruption. His English isn't very good, so here I go

One of the cases he's analyzing is the sale of 4 Boeing-707 airplanes for $50,000 . These airplanes couldn't fly but according to public information, they had their avionics, each of them has 4 working (not suitable for flying) Pratt &amp; Whitney JT3D engines and one of them had a working intelligence/surveillance system (this was a very complex subject and now government says they'll try to keep this for training). Airplanes were for military use, both passengers and cargo.

Even considering selling them for scrap or replacement parts, is $50,000 a realistic price? For example, is there a place I can find prices for the parts, eg engines, landing gear and such?

EDIT: this is in Argentina, newspaper article (in Spanish).

Some data translated from article:


Approximate cruising speed: 977 km / h
Service ceiling: 11,000 meters
Approximate range: 8690 km
Empty weight: 62,500 kg
Load capacity: 94,000 pounds
Maximum operating weight: 335,600 pounds
It could carry up to 180 passengers


They are four-engine jet aircraft, Boeing brand.


Primary function: Transport of passengers and cargo, as the case may be.
Wing type: low implantation. Undercarriage: type retractable tricycle with 10 armed wheels. They have four Pratt &amp; Whitney engines (turbines).
Length: 44 meters. Span: 47 meters. Tail height: 13 meters.


3 of the airplanes were bought by an US company specialized in airplanes' instrumental and parts, 1 was bought by a local party.
Its surely possibly and there are a few things I can think of off hand, 


Missing Log Books: generally speaking if an aircraft is missing its log books you need to do quite a bit of tear down and rework on it to make it airworthy once again. In many cases the cost of this far out weighs the cost of a logbook/airworth plane so not always done. As such this can severely drive down the price of the aircraft making it close to worthless. In line with this, without the log books you can not sell any of the parts for replacement either. With out the ability to properly tag the part they are only worth their weight in scrap. Considering they seem unflyable and are fairly large to chop up and ship scrapping it can also become a costly maneuver. 
The tax man...: Airplanes (and all manner of vehicles) often change hands for strange dollar amounts due to various tax regulations. That does not look like the case here but it does happen. 
Simply Outdated: keep in mind the 707 is a fairly old plane by anyones standards these days. While it may have avionics chances are they are no newer than when it was parked there to collect dust, like it or not the best LORAN C unit in the world may have cost a fortune to install back then but is worth next to nothing now. 


These things dont exactly go up for sale all that often but here is a pretty nice one listed for 6.2 Million and here is reference to one listed for only 700K. Please keep in mind that there are countless variables for this kind of thing that could drive the price both up and down drastically.