Odometer fraud: Police bail lifted for dealers behind racket

Police bail for the used-car dealers who are being investigated over alleged odometer tampering has been lifted, MaltaToday has learnt.

Sources told this newspaper that police investigations into the alleged fraud are still ongoing, a year after MaltaToday revealed that hundreds of consumers were sold second-hand Japanese cars with tampered mileage gauges.

The two dealerships – Rokku and Tal-Qasab – have seen their police bail lifted and are yet to be charged by the police. They had also been issued with an attachment order.

Attachment orders are usually issued in money laundering cases. The court orders that all moneys and other movable property owed or pertaining or belonging to the suspect be taken out of suspect’s control and placed in the care of a third party.

In an exclusive report, this newspaper had revealed last year how hundreds of consumers were sold second-hand Japanese cars with tampered mileage gauges, in a racket involving at least two car dealerships.

Cars bought from Japanese bidding markets on the cheap because of their high mileage, would then be sold in Malta – however these had their odometers tampered to show low mileages.

An exercise carried out by MaltaToday on a sample of 18 cars flagged by multiple industry sources, revealed discrepancies ranging between 30,000km and 130,000km between the original mileage and the one registered in Malta.

Crucially, industry sources told MaltaToday that the racket started the moment the cars arrived in Malta. When cars are offloaded at Laboratory Wharf in the Grand Harbour, the police must fill in the Vehicle 5 (VEH 005) customs and police inspection form.

The manual form contains several fields, including one where the car’s dashboard mileage is listed.

However, it appeared that dealers often used the excuse that the car battery was drained throughout their voyage at sea on the cargo ship, preventing the dashboard mileage from being read by the inspecting police officers.

In these instances, the inspector left the mileage field blank so that the dealer could fill it in later, when the car is restarted using a booster. Sources indicated that although there may be genuine cases of car batteries that fall flat, many times these would have been disconnected by the dealer.

Rokku and Tal-Qasab have continued to operate, despite being interrogated by the police last year. It is still unclear when, or if, they will be charged.

Following the MaltaToday investigation, Transport Malta increased its scrutiny of documentation presented by car dealers who import used vehicles from Japan.

The transport regulator later stepped in to supplant the process previously manned by police officers, to verify the mileage declared in documentation from importers, with data available in JEVIC databases.

Several consumers bitten by the scam also took their case to the consumer affairs authority, demanding compensation from the dealers.