KBV 372R, the Audi, which is parked at Kabete Police Station unearths how deep a car registration cartel in Kenya has spread its tentacles to reap off unsuspecting motorists and financial institutions.
The car was used as collateral for a Sh1 million loan from Meridian Acceptance Ltd. In 60 days, this car’s registration details have been changed thrice in the registration database — first as a lorry, then as a sports utility vehicle and again as a truck!
Trouble began when the borrower, a Congolese national, defaulted on the Sh. 1 million loan. However, Meridian Acceptance Ltd, who had duly conducted a search in the KRA system and found the ownership documents genuine,was unable to make any moves on the car to recover the defaulted loan. Apparently, the vehicle had now been ‘converted’ into a lorry.
The first search, on February 8 this year, showed the registration was for a black Audi Q7 station wagon manufactured in 2007. Its chassis number was established as WAUZZZ4L6D027998 and was registered to the Congolese man with the registration number KBV 372R.
A second search conducted on April 19 brought up a completely different result. The car registration details were for a white Leyland truck whose chassis number was MB1DTJCC0DRCH205.
The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), which took over vehicle registration from KRA in March, admitted in a letter to Meridian Acceptances that the fraudulent change of records was made in their systems.
According to the NTSA, the genuine registration details were indeed those of an Ashok Leyland truck belonging to a power transmission company.
“The number plate KBV 372R was registered with us on 8th July 2013 and allocated to a Leyland truck belonging to Kalpatura Power Transmission Limited,” read the April 19 letter signed by NTSA Director for Registration and Licensing Jacqueline Githinji.
“However, on May 12, 2014, a fraudulent entry was made in our system which deleted the details of the lorry and imposed the chassis number belonging to an Audi Q7 belonging to Jean Paul Ilunga Civuila and a logbook issued. As per our records, the genuine vehicle details for KBV 372R indicate it is a white Ashok Leyland truck. Any other vehicle holding that registration is not genuine.”
Meridian Acceptances Managing Director James Ndwiga said the response came as a shock to him, having seized the vehicle in readiness to dispose of it in a bid to recover the money owed to him.
But his shock did not end there. On his way from the NTSA offices, Mr Ndwiga spotted yet another vehicle, a Subaru Outback, with the same KBV 372R registration numbers on Uhuru Highway.
In disbelief, the businessman called one of his staff to verify what he was seeing. He followed the car to Kangemi and alerted a policeman who escorted it to Kabete Police Station.
“I was shocked by what I saw because, apart from the lorry I had been told about, here was another car with the same registration number,” said Mr Ndwiga.
“The police are still looking at the two vehicles but my loan remains unpaid while this remains a big threat to asset lenders and vehicle owners who can no longer be sure of their car ownership.”
Ruling out counterfeiting, he stated: “The logbooks are genuine; so we can’t talk about River Road here.” The lady driver caught with the Subaru has reportedly gone missing since then.
A recent incident presented to the Nation Media Group’s Daily Nation, a motor vehicle was used to borrow while it was still at the yard, awaiting a buyer. The owner was shocked when auctioneers showed up with parallel documents intending to sell the car, but he was lucky to have transferred the ownership a few days earlier to his name.
Curiously, the logbook serial numbers fall within the ‘S’ and ‘R’ series that KRA reported lost in June 2011 and January 2012, respectively. Two KRA staff were suspended in 2013 as 1,000 logbooks, believed to be in circulation, remained at large. One batch has numbers S172501 to S173000 and the other S363501-S364000.
– DAILY NATION
