The police have been informed about a possible scam after a British man was sold a jeep registered as having been scrapped by its previous owner.
Andy Campbell bought a 1956 Land Rover last August through a car dealer. The vehicle was garaged for several months until his Malta resident ID was processed. He insured the Land Rover in January, but was in for a shock the following month, when doing the VRT test, as he discovered the Land Rover was not on Transport Malta's system.
The transport watchdog soon established that the vehicle was registered as having been scrapped. Vehicles can only be scrapped on presentation of a valid logbook – which had been in Mr Campbell’s possession the whole time.
A chance meeting with the previous owner led Mr Campbell to suspect there was more to the story than initially met the eye.
“English, I thought you took the truck to the UK,” Mr Campbell recalls the previous owner’s husband telling him during a meeting at Transport Malta’s licensing department in Floriana. The man claimed he had scrapped eight vehicles that day and that his wife scrapped the Land Rover sold to Mr Campbell “by mistake”.
A chance meeting with the previous owner led him to suspect there was more to the story
A Transport Malta spokesman told this newspaper he was unable to provide statistics on how many ‘scrapped’ vehicles had been exported to the UK and registered with the transport authorities there.
Transport Malta was contacted by the seller and told to reverse the vehicle’s scrapping registration, thought this could only be done if an affidavit was presented by the previous owner confirming the “mistake”.
Mr Campbell decided to file a police report accusing the previous owner of fraudulently scrapping the vehicle and Transport Malta of colluding in this.
Mr Campbell said he suspected someone at Transport Malta had provided the seller with a replica logbook enabling her to scrap a vehicle she should not have been in possession of and for which she did not have a logbook.
An affidavit was sent by the previous owner to Transport Malta confirming the “mistake” over scrappage.
Mr Campbell said he was advised by Transport Malta that registering the vehicle as a classic would solve his problem. It was later discovered that the engine was of a later production date than the body, so Transport Malta informed Mr Campbell that the only option was to pay €6,500 to re-register the Land Rover.
When contacted, a Transport Malta spokesman refused to discuss specific cases though confirming that the police had been informed about this particular case.
Mr Campbell said he wondered whether his was a one-off case or supposedly scrapped vehicles were being sent to the UK.
jacob.borg@timesofmalta.com