Cars impounded in UK stolen car probe

THREE cars have been confiscated so far in an ongoing Scotland Yard investigation in Cyprus involving a luxury car scam, police said yesterday.

CID headquarters chief Yiannakis Charalambous said so far three cars had been impounded on suspicion of being stolen.

“At a first glance it looks as if they are stolen,” he said.

Charalambous said the car owners had probably bought the vehicles in good faith, not knowing they were stolen.

“At this stage it doesn’t look as if the buyer is responsible. But the investigation won’t end here. We will trace back to the person who sold the car in the UK to the purchaser here,” he said.

He said investigators were checking all 245 cars involved in the scam that had been imported from the UK and sold to local buyers.

The scam involves double registering the chassis number of cars imported to Cyprus from the UK.

Specifically, the 245 luxury vehicles have had their chassis number duplicated and used to register stolen vehicles of exactly the same brand and model as the cars sold in the UK. The purpose of the scam was to dupe UK authorities regarding the stolen vehicles as they were already registered here.

Police have already confirmed 84 of the 245 cars have been registered in Cyprus.

Of the 84 cars, almost half have been examined, from which the three were confiscated.

The investigation is expected to conclude within 15 days.