You’ve been conned: Fraudsters beware, the ACLC is on your chassis

Customers at the city’s vehicle markets often find themselves victims of fraud

KARACHI: There are three Sunday markets for cars in Karachi: in New Karachi, Hyderi Market and Korangi. Hundreds of visitors flock to these each week either in search of vehicles or looking to sell them. The New Karachi market deals only with four-wheelers, the Hyderi one has only motorcycles, while the Korangi market sells both.

Most of the time, however, the buyers frequenting these markets end up facing losses. Some of them find that the chassis and engine numbers of the vehicles have been tampered with. Others find themselves behind bars.



"Buying a car from the Sunday market was one of the worst decisions of my life," says Umair Baig, who runs his own business. Baig purchased a Suzuki Khyber for Rs150,000 from the New Karachi market in April last year. "I knew that the car's actual value was closer to Rs200,000, but in my eagerness for a good deal, I didn't stop to think why the owner would be selling it for such a low price," he narrates. "I swiftly paid the asking price without bothering to consult anyone, because I did not want to lose the car and there were other people ready to take the offer."

A couple of months later, Baig found his car confiscated and himself locked up after the police apprehended him during snap-checking. "They checked the car and told me that I was driving a stolen vehicle," he explains. "My fault was that I bought a stolen car, which was sold after tampering with the chassis and engine numbers."

Baig is not the only such victim. Software engineer Amir Siddiqui found himself at the receiving end of fraud at a Sunday market too, but he is thankful that his losses were minor. "I paid Rs2,000 as a deposit for a Honda 125 motorcycle at the Hyderi market after finalising a deal for Rs55,000," he says. "After that, I was unable to find the seller, who had turned his cellphone off."

The good news is that the Anti Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) has established monitoring camps at the markets to prevent customers from being defrauded. Although the ACLC is already facing a shortage of manpower, having only 395 policemen instead of its granted strength of 853, it is deputing 15 staffers to each of the three markets, equipped with laptops for online verification.

"We have apprehended a number of scammers in the two months since we set up our camps here," ACLC monitoring camp in-charge inspector Ishtiaq Ghauri told The Express Tribune. "Mostly, we have traced tampered engine and chassis numbers and fake registration number plates."

Ghauri explained that where motorcycles are concerned, most of them were registered outside the city and so there was no direct system available to verify them. "We have links in the other cities, so we have to check with them before informing the buyer if the vehicle is clear," he added. He further said that apart from tampering with the numbers, scammers often also fooled people by giving them fake bank drafts.

Meanwhile, the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) is also assisting the ACLC. "Our job is to verify the tampering, while the CPLC helps customers by matching the chassis and engine numbers to the vehicle registration numbers," revealed CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3^rd, 2014.