Safe sales - Police, private firm provide secure transaction facility

Sheldon Williams, Gleaner Writer

The police and at least one private security company, KingAlarm, have confirmed that they have mechanisms and facilities in place to guarantee smooth motor vehicle sales.

This is in an effort to ensure personal safety and also that the vehicle is legitimately in the seller's possession.

SSP Fitz Bailey of the Organised Crime Investigation Division (OCID) advised Automotives that the JCF's Stolen Motor Vehicle Unit, which falls under Flying Squad, facilitates safe motor-vehicle transactions by conducting background checks on vehicles to be sold and purchased, at no cost to the consumer.

"The police force offers a service that if a person is purchasing a vehicle, they can bring it to the Stolen Motor Vehicle Unit where they will do a physical examination of it to see if it was tampered with or if it was stolen. So they have that option. If they can take the car they can get that done," the senior cop said. The unit is at the Flying Squad's offices on Harbour Street, downtown Kingston.

Managing director of KingAlarm, John Azar, also told Automotives that the company has safeguarding motor vehicle transactions without cost, as a show of goodwill to its clients. He also said he has information which suggests criminals have been paying attention to 'for sale' advertisements in the papers to identify potential targets.

"Sellers and indeed buyers need to be wary of conducting transactions with strangers and we know of at least one case where the persons with dishonest intent were the sellers and not the prospective purchasers," Azar said.

Azar said KingAlarm has facilitated the sale of motor vehicles on its premises at the request of clients. In addition, the company has provided security services for clients who want someone to oversee a motor-vehicle transaction. The security firm also provides a service where background checks can be conducted on vehicles.

There has been a spike in the reported incidents of car sale transactions gone horribly wrong in recent times, with two potential buyers being robbed of large sums of cash and at least one seller being shot and killed after he allowed a test drive of the vehicle to a criminal who posed as a potential buyer.

Robbery is suspected to have been the motive behind the August 27 killing of Michael Rochester of Nain, St Elizabeth, whose body was dumped along Spur Tree Hill in Manchester. It was reported that Rochester had gone to Spur Tree to meet a potential buyer for his Toyota motor car. Three men turned up and they began to negotiate the sale of the vehicle with Rochester.

Police reports indicate that one of the men went into Rochester's car with him aboard to purportedly test drive it. Rochester was shot and then the man drove off with the car. Rochester's body was then

'thrown from the car along the roadway.

Also two brothers who went to purchase a car from a lady who had advertised the vehicle for sale were ambushed by armed men, who alighted from bushes, assaulted them and stole their money. The Gleaner reported that the brothers Al and Paul journeyed from their St Mary home to May Pen, Clarendon, to purchase a motor car advertised in a newspaper. However, they ended up being ambushed, robbed and pistol-whipped by two masked gunmen.

Al told The Gleaner that he saw an advertisement for a 1998 Toyota Corolla, priced at $210,000. He said when they called a female, claiming to be a nurse, she said she was migrating and needed to sell the motor car immediately. A deal was struck on the phone and arrangements made to meet at the May Pen Police Station on Monday afternoon.

"When we reach the police station in May Pen and called the lady, she said she was waiting on her niece so we should come to the Tiger Mart to meet her. But when we got to the Tiger Mart and called her back, she said to us, 'just come down in a de lane and you will see me'," recalled Al.

"When we go down inna the lane, two masked men jumped out on us with gun and started beating us up, so me give them the money fast, cause me nuh want them kill we."