According to the report, interested buyers would have to go through the agents and runners of the organization who have already bid for the numbers.

One of the agents interviewed by the portal claimed he and several of his counterparts actually have offices in the JPJ, where they would wait for JPJ officers to bring the numbers and negotiate a deal.

The agent claimed that they would be given time to check the availability of the numbers, but this did not include VIP numbers which were reserved for VVIPs.

“The number plates need to be registered to a vehicle within a month of purchase, so if we fail to find a buyer, we either pay a small sum to extend the deadline or buy a cheap motorbike to attach the number,” the agent was quoted as saying.

The agent said customers could go to a motorcycle shop near a JPJ office where they could pick their desired numbers and they could purchase the numbers with the motorcycle or just transfer the number to their vehicle.

The sale of the numbers would be advertised online by the runners as “interesting number plates” with numbers such as 2222 or 5757 costing between RM2,000 and RM7,000 while special numbers like 3636 would set the buyer back no less than RM5,000.

The agent also said the price for “golden numbers” like 33 or 77 could run into six digits