Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1508267
7 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 SEPTEMBER 2023 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The officers' suspension and eventual prosecution follows a year-long investigation into the scam operated by at least two second-hand Japanese car im- porters. The scam involved deceiving consumers by tampering the mileage gauge to show fewer kilo- metres. It is unclear what part the four police officers had in the scam but part of the racket involved police officers in the Grand Har- bour failing to fill in the car mile- age on official documents. MaltaToday exclusively re- vealed last year how hundreds of consumers were sold sec- ond-hand Japanese cars with tampered mileage gauges. Cars bought from Japanese bid- ding markets on the cheap be- cause of their high mileage, would then be sold in Malta. However, upon arrival in Malta these cars had their odometers tampered to show low mileages. Two car dealerships, Rokku Autodealer of Ghaxaq and Tal- Qasab of Qormi were identified as the culprits in this scam. No criminal action has been taken yet against the two companies despite the owners being interro- gated by the police. It is still unclear when, or if, they will be charged and both compa- nies have continued to operate. Last June, MaltaToday reported that the police bail for the sus- pected dealers had been lifted. They had also been issued with an attachment order. Attachment orders are usually issued in money laundering cas- es. The court orders that all mon- eys and other movable property owed or pertaining or belonging to the suspect be taken out of sus- pect's control and placed in the care of a third party. How did the racket operate? 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 had told MaltaToday that the racket started the moment the cars ar- rived in Malta. When cars are offloaded at Lab- oratory Wharf in the Grand Har- bour, the police must fill in the Vehicle 5 (VEH 005) customs and police inspection form. The manual form contains sev- eral 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 of- ficers. In these instances, the inspec- tor left the mileage field blank so that the dealer could fill it in later, when the car is restarted using a booster. Following the MaltaToday in- vestigation, Transport Malta in- creased its scrutiny of documen- tation presented by car dealers who import used vehicles from Japan. The transport regulator later stepped in to supplant the pro- cess previously manned by po- lice officers, to verify the mileage declared in documentation from importers, with data available in JEVIC databases. These are data- bases where the correct car mile- age is recorded before the vehicle leaves Japan. Several consumers bitten by the scam also took their case to the consumer affairs authority, de- manding compensation from the dealers. Police officers' suspension and eventual prosecution follows year-long investigation Odometer tampering racket