In a shocking development, the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) in Kerala has detected widespread illegal change of registration certificates (RCs), without the knowledge of the vehicle owners. The authorities also found that most of these owners had defaulted on repayment of their vehicle loans.

The fraudsters changed the ownership of the vehicles in the RC - keeping the owners in the dark, took away the vehicles and sold them to others. Ownership of vehicles belonging to people living abroad and that of deceased persons was also changed in a similar manner.

The fraud was carried out by intruding into the database of the vehicle without the knowledge of the owner and changing the registered mobile number. A new mobile number is added to the database and an OTP generated to change the RC. This enables the first step of ownership change. An application is soon submitted to the MVD office, leading to the creation of a new RC in another person’s name.

As per rules, ownership of a vehicle confiscated by finance firms following default in EMIs on loans has to be transferred to the company and a new RC taken before holding an auction to sell the vehicle to another person. The fraud was carried out to avoid these procedures.

Though MVD officials received information that gangs involved in the fraud were changing mobile numbers in the database by charging a mere Rs 2,000, they have been so far unable to discover the method employed.

The fraud came to the notice of the MVD when the Transport Commissioner received a complaint over the sale of a bus registered in Pala to a person in Tripunithura.