The New Straits Times reported that the syndicate would smuggle cars from Singapore into the country and deploy local runners to seek buyers. These cars no longer have Singapore’s Certificate of Entitlement (COE) or are nearing the certificate’s expiry.

Under Singaporean law, the COE gives a car owner the right to register, own and use the vehicle for 10 years. After that, the owner can opt to either de-register the vehicle, or renew the COE for another five or 10 years.

Cars are let go by their owners through this method, especially “high end” models such as BMW, Honda, Toyota, and Mini-Cooper. These are much sought after by Malaysian buyers as they sell for at least 50 per cent cheaper than the market price.

The syndicate, with the help of RTD insiders, register the “scrap” vehicles with RTD and provided these grants, so that the buyers could apply for insurance and road tax, claimed the NST report.

The rogue insiders, who also forge documents, such as the Approved Permit (AP), Customs Form No 1 (to import) and Puspakom’s Vehicle Inspection form, to make the transaction look legitimate, get paid between RM2,000 and RM5,000 for a vehicle, depending on the model.

According to the report, several car cloning syndicates are boldly advertising their services on social media.

It said most of these syndicates, which operated in Johor and cloned Singaporean cars, sold these for between RM4,000 and RM400,000 – way cheaper than the market price. To avoid detection, transactions are by cash only.

One such Facebook page offers buyers cloned grants, Malaysian registration plate, cloned road tax and even driving licences.

Despite knowing the risks of having cloned vehicles, Malaysians were responding to such posts with interest to buy, said the report.

Earlier this year, it was reported that there were between 3,000 and 5,000 cloned cars on Malaysian roads.