Check documents of cheap cars: Police

JAKARTA (JP): City police have urged Jakartans who have just bought secondhand cars at attractive prices to examine the authenticity of the vehicle documents immediately.

City police detectives' chief Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo said on Sunday that the warning was merely based on a police finding recently of fake documents from scores of stolen vehicles netted by the police over the past few weeks.

Based on a preliminary police investigation, the car papers were issued by vehicle theft syndicates or brokers, he said.

The criminal groups, Alex said, usually offered potential buyers a lower price for the stolen vehicles.

They even give good discounts, ranging from Rp 2 million (US$300) to Rp 3 million to buyers, who seemingly did not take the documents seriously, he said.

"After a buyer agrees with the price, the gang members hand over the bogus vehicle documents immediately to the new owners.

"In many cases, the buyers only received the vehicle license number document (STNK), while other documents required, such as ownership documents, are promised later by the sellers.

"We have received many reports and complaints from people who have become victims of this crime."

Alex said the buyers often realized that they were buying, driving and owning stolen cars only after the vehicles were checked on the street by police, who later informed car owners that they were using false vehicle numbers.

After police checked the numbers and physical identification marks of the cars, the owners were then informed that the cars were among those reported missing to the police by the original owners, Alex said.

"But we can't charge people who have bought stolen cars from the thieves, as long as they did not know the origin of their cars. They (the victims) were just deceived."

He said that if Jakartans wanted to buy used cars, they should make sure that the cars have proper papers.

They could even ask police for assistance if they were given any suspicious offers, such as discounts, and promises to obtain the documents from the sellers, Alex said.

As of Sunday, Jakarta Police detectives have netted a total of 216 cars during a massive operation beginning early this year.

Of that number, 116 were handed back to the real owners. The remaining 100 vehicles are still being kept at City Police Headquarters, waiting for their real owners to bring along the legal documents.

One of the latest significant results in the police operation was the arrest of six people grouped in two separate gangs, who were apprehended from July 1 to July 16.

From the groups, police confiscated 20 cars, including a Suzuki Baleno sedan, a Suzuki Sidekick jeep, a Timor sedan and a Mitsubishi Gallant sedan.

The gangs' two other members, Kasmiri and Hendra, are still at large.

Many of the suspects allegedly admitted that they ran the illegal business as a side job.

One of them, 29-year-old Sapto Kashariyanto was employed by a national airline company as a flight attendant.(emf)