Explosion in finance frauds

Car finance fraudsters are running riot, shipping more cars than ever out of UK ports unchecked –  and it’s all down to cuts in Government funding. 

The crime, which sees crooks purchase a vehicle on credit using false or stolen ID and then sell the vehicle abroad, is dramatically on the rise, according to figures published by the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA).

It says that 230 luxury motors worth £3.8million in total were successfully sneaked out of UK ferry ports in the first three months of 2011 – up from 197 during the same period in 2010, a rise of 17 per cent.

An FLA spokesman added: “There’s a range of ways that fraudsters work. Police are reluctant to disclose these methods but they can include the use of stolen ID details or false employment histories to obtain vehicles.”

Port police managed to stop a further 2,000 attempts to ship stolen vehicles between January and March this year, however. Among the successes was a haul of cars including an Audi Q7 and Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, seized by Suffolk Police at the port of Felixstowe.

But the FLA says more funding is needed to reduce the number slipping through the net, after the Government axed the Vehicle Crime Unit’s funding. “It costs £800,000 a year to crack down on this crime; money which currently comes from our members,” its spokesman said. Some of these losses can be recouped through the sale of stolen vehicles once they are recovered.

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