VIN Cloning Increasingly Popular! How to Protect Yourself Against It?

In recent weeks, we have been hearing more and more about cases of VIN cloning in vehicles. What to do to avoid it and how to protect yourself against fraudsters?

VIN Cloning in Poland

VIN cloning recently gained much attention due to the problems faced by the Polish Deputy Prime Minister, who bought a car with such a legal flaw. After some time, it turned out that there was another car in France with the identical VIN number. CarVertical warns that such cases are very difficult to detect, although they fortunately occur very rarely.

CarVertical has already recorded similar situations in its history. For such fraud to occur, criminals in possession of a stolen car must find an identical model listed for sale in advertisements anywhere on the continent and simply copy the VIN number. Two problems then arise. The first is the disclosure of the matter. The second is determining which vehicle is authentic and which is a clone. It is worth noting that at the time of preparing the material, it was not yet known which of the Peugeots had the real VIN – the Deputy Prime Minister’s car or the one from France. However, the problem did exist.

When Does the Issue Come to Light?

Such fraud is usually detected by chance. If the cars are used in different parts of the world, the issue may remain hidden for years. Everything may come to light when both cars enter the same insurance system, a common service database, or during registration in an area with a shared database. Unfortunately, it is not yet unified in Europe. Therefore, no one can guarantee that a pre-purchase inspection will completely eliminate the risk of such a situation. Hence, online jokes about the Polish Minister of Digital Affairs are absolutely unjustified.

– The only way to 100% avoid buying a cloned car is to purchase a brand-new vehicle from a dealer. When buying a used car, despite taking all precautions, there is always such a possibility. However, this does not mean that you can forgo verifying the vehicle’s history. On the contrary – purchasing a vehicle history report significantly reduces the risk of buying a “clone,” as these reports verify data exclusively from reliable sources, such as companies or institutions related to vehicle insurance and servicing. They can realistically detect the problem at this stage. – Matas Buzelis, automotive expert and head of communication at carVertical.

A Similar Case Affected Famous Public Figures

The fact that celebrities or officials are not free from the risk of buying a car with a legal flaw is evidenced by a case in Romania. This situation also involved a crime that was essentially undetectable at the time it was committed. Marius Budai, a former labor minister, and Dan Șlincu, a PSD deputy, were arrested behind the wheel of a stolen car. The PSD deputy claimed that he bought an Audi A6 in 2015 from a man in the Galati district – he was supposed to be the second owner of the vehicle in Romania. Șlincu used the car for 8 years without any problems, only to be detained at the border on his way back from Moldova.

It is likely that the theft of this car was reported only a year after the purchase (in 2016), so at the time of the transaction, all documents were credible. Of course, one might wonder how it was possible that after the theft was reported, the car continued to drive on the roads and was visible in the system (insurance, communication department, etc.) for so many years, but this is being investigated by Romanian authorities. It is worth noting that Romania has seen a significant improvement in the market and can boast a decrease in car thefts over the past few years: from 2,028 in 2016 to 1,448 in 2021. However, these are still large numbers, suggesting that the country still has a long way to go.

– Car thieves often try to make a quick sale before the vehicle is declared missing. This increases their chances because the exchange of theft data between institutions in different countries always takes some time. In any case, buyers should exercise caution when making transactions and check imported cars in every possible way. – Matas Buzelis, automotive expert and head of communication at carVertical.

The Timing of Reporting a Theft Matters

The above stories reveal an important problem – data in systems – whether state or private – always appears with a certain delay because it needs to be processed and pass through various systems and databases. Ideally, the person who loses a car immediately reports it to the police. However, sometimes they report it, for example, a month later when they return from vacation or a business trip, and then that month is a period of full protection for the criminals.

Stolen vehicles usually end up on the black market for spare parts, but very rarely is a stolen car resold “whole.” Probably the only way to do this is to clone the VIN number because it is very complicated to trace. Hypothetically, if criminals steal a vehicle in a Western European country, they can look for very similar cars listed for sale in Eastern Europe and then copy any VIN number and convert it onto the body of the stolen car.