This was revealed by the Perak Road Transport Department (RTD) Director Ramli Awang Seberang who talked about the bad fortune befalling users and owners of cloned cars.
He said the longest someone could show off a cloned car he bought was three years and the shortest was merely three days before it was detected and seized by the RTD.
He said the RTD did not have any problems detecting cloned cars on the road because they appeared different physically from the original.
“Most buyers are from the middle (income) group who are passionate about buying a luxury car at a low price without taking into account the things they have to abide by,” he said in an exclusive interview with Bernama here recently.
He said RTD found cloned car syndicates used social sites to lure people to buy the cars at RM10,000 to RM20,000 each.
“Investigations on bank transactions found the amounts for most payments were below RM10,000 while the balance was paid when the buyer met the salesmen.
“Unfortunately, some salesmen do not turn up to hand over the car ownership grants to the buyer as promised and could not be contacted after that.”
Elaborating further on efforts to detect cloned cars in Perak, Ramli Awang said 125 vehicles of various makes, worth more than RM3 million, had been seized since the operation started in May last year.
He said the cars were seized in Ipoh (73), Manjung (20), Taiping (12), Tapah (10), Kuala Kangsar (six) and Teluk Intan (four).
He said most of the cloned cars seized were various models of Honda, including Jazz, Odyssey, Civic and Stream, other than Toyota, Subaru, Audi, BMW, Mazda, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Mini Cooper and Volvo.
Ramli Awang said investigations found the chassis number of cloned cars were not in the RTD registration while their registration numbers and road tax were fakes.
He warned that those using fake registration numbers and road tax could be charged in court under the RTD Act 1987.
“After being issued with summonses, they will be charged in court. Warrants of arrest will be issued against them if they fail to turn up in court and their names will be blacklisted.”
However, he said to date no buyers of cloned cars in Perak had been charged as investigations were still ongoing.
Ramli Awang said RTD would also apply to the court to dispose of the seized cloned vehicles.
“There are many risks in using a cloned car. The buyer will also not be able to make an insurance claim if there is an accident,” he warned.
– BERNAMA