This seems to be the second major criminal ring caught out by the Police faking and re-birthing historic muscle cars. Let's hope these criminals get more than a slap on the wrist by the courts un like the first lot who got off very lightly even after being convicted. And the poor buyers are left hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket. Unfortunately not everybody is an expert in identifying a genuine historic car and these guys are experts at faking/fudging identification markers, numbers, fitments etc. so that only an expert can tell if the vehicle is the real thing; unless of course someone who already owns a genuine car happens to find his engine and tag numbers on another vehicle, which makes one of the cars an obvious forgery.
These scams have a knock on affect on genuine sellers as buyers who may not have the expertise to properly identify a vehicle are naturally scared off by all the talk about rebirth vehicles and forgeries.
I can only hope that they do go to jail for a long time, have their assets seized and that buyers get compensation, as if all they get is a loss of their Motor Traders Licence and a relatively small fine they will just nominate a clean member of their gang as the dealer nominee and themselves as employees and just go on operating and coming up with new ways to scam unsuspecting enthusiasts!
The annoying part is that if someone robbed a bank of $500 they would get 8 years jail but these type of crims usually get a small fine and a suspension from trading even though the have collectively scammed millions od dollars!!
