Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) officers stationed at Mombasa Port have impounded a Range Rover worth Sh26 million and is suspected to have been cloned in the United Kingdom before importation.
The KEBS officials intercepted the seemingly brand-new Range Rover HSE Sport while conducting a routine inspection of vehicles at the Regional Logistics Center Container Freight Station in Mombasa.
Car cloning is defined as the illegal process of taking one vehicle's identity and matching it with another car ostensibly to escape responsibility for crimes committed or to mask the theft of a particular vehicle.
KEBS Acting Managing Director Esther Ngari says the bureau became suspicious and commenced an investigation after the luxury vehicle’s chassis number matched another similar vehicle in the UK.
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"The vehicle originated in the UK and was shipped through the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but we managed to intercept it before it reached the Kenyan market,” said Ngari.
Owing to the incident, the KEBS acting MD said the government agency would upscale its inspection of motor vehicle imported from the UK and UAE via the port of Mombasa to tame the car theft racket.
KEBS has handed the seized Range Rover to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) for further probe with the intention of seeking permission to either return it to the country of origin or to destroy it locally.