Land Transportation Office Chief Assistant Secretary Virginia Torres has sought the assistance of the Insurance Commission to compel insurance companies to alarm the LTO of the certificate of registration (CR) numbers of total wrecked motor vehicles (MV) which they have paid for from claimants.
In a letter to Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel Dooc, Torres said that the “motor vehicles earlier declared as ‘total loss/wreck’ by their owners and paid for by insurance companies has been identified as a potential take off point of carnappers in registering stolen vehicles.”
Torres said that it is imperative to monitor these total wrecked vehicles to ensure that their registration documents are not used for illicit purposes.
LTO received information that one modus operandi of carjacking syndicates is to ‘buy’ the registration papers of total wreck vehicles from enterprising insurance companies employees. Carjackers then hunt down a vehicle with the same make and ‘fix’ the vehicle, by manufacturing plate numbers, changing body color and altering with the chassis number, to be the resurrection of the vehicle in LTO records.
In other cases, and to prevent the detection of tampering by macro-etching of the PNP-HPG, the area with the chassis number is cut out from the total wreck vehicle and is weld on to replace the chassis number of the carjacked vehicle.
The vehicle could then be easily registered with the LTO by falsifying sale documents of the registered previous owner to the new owners and use the original OR/CR to transfer the registration to the new owners of the vehicle.
Torres sought the support and cooperation of the Insurance Commission to require insurance companies to regularly submit to the LTO reports of vehicles declared as lost so that these could be alarmed in the system and prevent any “kambal” motor vehicle to be registered using the documents of these wrecks.
The February 1 letter of Torres also informed Commissioner Dooc that the LTO has recently created the Study Group on Motor Vehicle Registration to review and update the MV registration process to identify and correct areas in the process most vulnerable to corruption, abuse and inefficiency. Torres also formed the Committee on Anti-Carnapping to investigate the possible involvement of LTO officials and employees in carjacking syndicates and registration of hot cars.-30- Virginia Torres, LTO
