A Car Is Born
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday September 18, 1999
Malcolm Brown reports on ICAC evidence showing car "rebirthing" is relatively easy and lucrative.
REGISTRATION of non-existent cars? Creation of new people, who then register cars using bogus repair shop and auction receipts? Insurance company payouts for the loss of cars that never existed? Commercial engravers turning out vehicle compliance plates?
All this and more has been alleged in four days of hearings before the Independent Commission Against Corruption this week, with implications that go much further than the one group now in focus, of Lebanese origin and related by marriage or friendship, who deny being involved in a large-scale "rebirthing" cars.
Rebirthing involves buying a wrecked car at auction and transferring its Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), engine number and compliance plate to a stolen vehicle of the same make and model. The re-identified vehicle is then registered as if it were the same car that was wrecked, and had been repaired.
It's an old trick, but on the evidence this week all the control measures enacted over the years have scarcely diminished it.
Beyond car rebirthing, there are more profound implications, as adverted to by counsel assisting the inquiry, Peter Johnson.
Were they being used by illegal immigrants, for example, to disappear into the community? What about people on the run? Had this been happening for years?
The evidence suggests that there are large holes in measures put in place - after it was found, in 1982, that passports could be easily falsified - to try to stop the creation of false licences or misuse of existing licences, namely by putting photographs of people on licences.
Fida Khazma, 25, of Ashcroft in Sydney's outer south-west, told ICAC she had been working for the Roads and Traffic Authority for three years at several registries, including Beverley Hills and Lidcombe. Her husband, Mohamad, was a boyhood friend of Rabih Rima, and Rima had been to her registry and asked her to do registrations for him, perhaps 20 over a period of 12 months.
He would hand her a photolicence with someone else's name and photo and auction receipts which had been typed, rather than computer-generated, as they normally were. She agreed it was odd that Rima, a pizza parlour worker, was registering so many vehicles, and she believed the cars were being sold. Eventually she had concluded something crooked was happening, but she had not been bribed.
Her uncle, Hatem "Tim" Maskaleh, had asked her to register between 20 and 40 vehicles for him. Sometimes, Marwan El-Hassan, with whom Maskaleh worked, would come into the registry at the time she was on processing duty.
On about seven occasions, she had given VINs to Maskaleh, not realising this was breaching regulations. He had said he had obtained the vehicles at auction, but she had become suspicious of this, as she had been of his requests to check VINs. She had not known that a "Complex Smash Repairs" certificate and a typed "Fowles Auction Group" invoice were false.
She had been hesitant to declare that she would no longer agree to the men's requests because she did not think a man would treat his niece this way, and she had fears about the family of Rima's wife, Amna.
Mohamad Khazma denied to the inquiry that Rima, who had phoned him the day of or the day before Rima's visits to the motor registry, had been checking whether Fida would be working there. Rima, 33, said he would not have registered as many as 20 cars, more like seven, including three BMWs and a Subaru. But, yes, he had used different names to register vehicles, including that of his mother, and of his brother-in-law, Mahmoud Mamze. Mamze had asked him, as a favour, to register vehicles for him, and had given him the required documentation, assuring him everything was kosher.
Rima agreed he had produced photolicences in various names and registered the motor vehicles in those names, including "Erik Sada" and "Michael Honin", though on each occasion the photo on the licence was that of Mamze. He had noticed that some of the auction slips were from interstate. "He gave me a bit of money [$200 or $300 a time]," he said. "I made a mistake. I was not aware of the law, properly."
Rima said he had finally suspected that something was wrong, but had not known at the time. It was not true, he said, that Mamze had given him $5,000 or $6,000 for each registration.
Amna Rima said in evidence that her brother, Mamze, had mentioned "identification packages". She denied that she had asked Fida Khazma to get a false licence for her for a sum of $2,000. But she had in earlier evidence to ICAC said she was involved with her husband in registering cars and that she had known it was wrong but "we needed the money".
Maskaleh said he was a licensed motor dealer, operating "Tim's Auto Salvage", and that he had done registrations for his business associate, El-Hassan, who had run, with brothers Brian and Zid, CRX Motor Sports. Maskaleh had been able to have stamp duty waived because he was a licensed dealer and had been able to register for a period of less than 12 months, attracting a lower registration fee. He had provided false documentation to say the vehicles were his, and enabled El-Hassan to obtain a financial benefit.
He said El-Hassan had paid him $200 or $300 each time he did it, as his "commission". He had, he said, become suspicious that El-Hassan was not operating legitimately, because he had become so wealthy.
El-Hassan, who is serving periodic detention, agreed he'd had cars bought at auction and registered in other people's names and he had made use of Maskaleh's status as a licensed dealer. Police had found a bag containing 19 compliance plates in his car but he said he only owned 10 of them and the nine other must have been planted there and he had a legitimate reason for having them anyway.
© 1999 Sydney Morning Herald
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