Vehicle auction scam

Investigations revealed registration of 7,013 vehicles was fake and 4,000 had been registered on unauthentic vouchers

When people try to live like rajas and maharajas in democracy, financial and other sorts of scandals do occur, off and on. The Anti-Corruption Establishment Punjab has unearthed a mega scandal that cost the exchequer a whopping loss of 300 billion rupees through a vehicle auction scam. ACE has registered a case against scores of officers, including five directors of the provincial Excise Taxation and Narcotics Control Board, suspected of their involvement in the fraud. Of the 18 officers named in the scam, ACE has arrested an excise and taxation officer. Others are on the run. Dishonest officials had been carrying out the dirty business of auctioning stolen and smuggled trucks, buses and other vehicles on the basis of forged auction papers for the past several years.

The investigations, starting in 2017, revealed that the registration of 7,013 vehicles was fake and another 4,000 had been registered on the basis of unauthentic vouchers, and the record of many vehicles could not be verified. During the course of its probe, the anti-graft body sought from the excise department verification of records of thousands of vehicles registered over the past several years. The excise department informed ACE that it had no record of 4,397 vehicles registered from 2015 to 2018.

The modus operandi of the scamming officials recalls to mind a recent financial scandal where millions and billions were found, deposited by unknown persons, in the accounts of poor push-cart vendors (kelaywallahs and thelaywallahs). In the false registration of vehicles, as many as 1,290 vehicles have been found registered in the name of an employee of the main accused in the case. Another 996 vehicles had been registered in the name of a stamp vendor. Both men are unaware that such large numbers of expensive automobiles have been registered against their names. ACE is in contact with NADRA to obtain full details about all those involved in the fraud. Uncovering of this mega scam shows that all fraudsters are not too clever to go undetected.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2020.

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