The scheme consists of buying cars in the United States at insurer auctions after accidents and reselling them in Europe at low prices.
A joint operation of the authorities of Lithuania and Germany dismantled a vast illegal resale scheme of used cars which will have introduced about 16,000 vehicles from the United States and Canada in several European countries since 2020.
The cars, many of them with serious structural damage And dangerously makeshift repairs, they were sold at attractive prices, deceiving consumers and putting lives at risk. The fraud also resulted in a fiscal dropout of over 31 million euros.
The criminal group operated in multiple countries in Europe, including PortugalGermany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Netherlands and Belgium. The investigation revealed alarming practices: vehicles with airbags replaced by pieces of fabric or clothing and low cost repairs, which hid serious accidents. Some of these cars have already been removed from circulation, but the total number of dangerous vehicles on the road is unknown.
According to a statement sent to ZAP by the company Carvertical, which specializes in vehicle history, the imported used car market continues highly vulnerable to fraudat a time when these sales represent one in 20 in Europe.
East European countries such as Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania have low levels of transparency, with high incidence of tampered mileage and hidden damage. About 7.2% of imported cars to Europe come from the US, many of them purchased at insurers auctions After accidents.
Low financial capacity in Eastern European countries Feeds the search for cheaper used vehiclesmaking these markets targeted particularly vulnerable to criminal networks.
“A car can be damaged in a country, be cheaply repaired and then sold in another country. Many vehicles that have suffered serious accidents in the US end up being imported to Europe. The car’s historic report allows you to identify the damaged parts and the estimated cost of repairs, ”explains Matas Buzelis, a car expert at Carvertical.
Kilometer fraud alone represents an estimated damage to 5.3 billion euros per year for the European economies. Countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany are the most affected, with losses of over 1 billion euros each
