Usually in the sophisticated thieves, it's the case that they buy a VIN from a car that was exported and not recorded as such. They then get a new copy of the title for a car that is no longer in the country and can request new factory stamped vin parts such as the suspension pillar. The car looks completely legitimate to your average person with matching VINs it's just there are now two cars in two different places

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barbazoo 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Exported but not recorded, wouldn’t that be a stolen car? If so the VIN prolly can’t be reused. Or is there a legit way this would happen?

Who else exports their car, doesn’t report it and then offers their VIN?

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xp84 2 days ago | parent [-]

I happened to see a video yesterday, unsourced though, which said that for cars that fetch a high premium overseas, exporters hire "straw buyers" to buy the cars and register them, then immediately take them to the port to be exported.

So, those seem like they'd be pretty good ones to use, as the straw buyer would certainly not report it as stolen. Though I bet they don't renew the tags, so you might owe a couple years of back registration depending on how old the 'source' car is.

	▲	Scoundreller 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Plenty of brands sell vehicles for less in some markets than others. They get all cranky about people arbitraging it but it is blatant price discrimination. Manufacturers were starting to require proof of insurance before handing over the keys and then people would get it and cancel+refund the insurance. Cat meet mouse. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/icbc-luxury-...

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hattmall 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

These aren't high end cars and essentially there is a formula for VINs but not all of them that get issued get used for various reasons so there are excess valid but not circulating VINs out there. It's just like social security and CPNs. Same people are sellers.