Combating Vehicle Crime and Fraud on damaged cars

The EReg Topic Group XVI focussed on vehicle crime and fraud related to damaged vehicles.

The first meeting of the TG took place on 11 June 2014, in Amsterdam the Netherlands. During this meeting the draft Action Plan was discussed.

The second meeting of the TG took place 23 and 24 September 2014 in Örebro, Sweden. During this meeting the TG took a closer look at the national procedures in the EReg Member States.

The third meeting of the TG took place on 22 and 23 April 2015 in Vilnius, At the meeting possible solutions were discussed to reduce vehicle crime and fraud related to damaged cars were discussed and a first draft of the recommendations was fomulated.

During the fourth and final meeting the first draft of the final report was discussed.

Vehicles severely damaged in an accident are an important source of crime. In a great number of cases the damaged vehicle’s identity (VIN) and registration documents are used to VIN switch a stolen vehicle. The stolen vehicle is then taken to another country and -with its new identity- registered there. This way, the vehicle registration systems in our countries serve to launder stolen vehicles.

Below you can read the executive summary of the final report:

In six out of ten countries that participated in Topic Group XVI, severe damage information is gathered. Mostly, information is provided by insurance companies or the police, either based on formal national regulations or on a gentlemen’s agreement. Such information is used in some countries as trigger to terminate a registration or to call the vehicle for an inspection in order to check the safety of the vehicle after repairs. In some countries, special attention is given to verify the originality of the vehicle’s identity during the inspection.

Making use of various existing practices, the Topic Group recommends the following:

• to register information about heavy damage and exchange such information via EUCARIS;

• to use damage information as trigger for an extra verification of the identity of a vehicle in case registration is applied for;

• to adopt an end-of life status if the vehicle was previously registered with that status by another EReg member;

• to preclude the rehabilitation of a vehicle’s identity once its registration has been cancelled or deregistered due to destruction (by any vehicle registration authority);

• to gain international support via the EU Platform for tackling Vehicle Crime for gathering damage information from police and insurance companies.