Last update - 00:00 18/07/2007
Legislation to tackle dangerous auto repair black market in territories
By Lior Gutman, Haaretz Correspondent
A bill initiated by MK Moshe Kahlon (Likud) proposes to make repairing automobiles outside the borders of Israel a criminal offense, punishable by three years' imprisonment.
According to Kahlon, placing a prohibition on car maintenance outside of Israel will ensure that such work is carried out only by regulated auto repair shops.
An average of 84 cars are stolen in a single day in Israel, according to data collected by TheMarker. Of these, 22 are returned to their owners, 32 are dismantled, ten go back on the road bearing false licenses, 12 are sold to residents of the Palestinian Authority, and eight are offered to their original owners in exchange for ransom.
Kahlon said the bill does not address auto theft specifically, but rather the broader industry of unregulated auto repairs and is aimed at drying up the source.
"The burden of proof of the location and quality of maintenance of cars will be on the owner," Kahlon said, adding that the proposed legislation will benefit a number of sectors. "The public will benefit from well-maintained cars, insurance premiums will be lower, auto theft will be reduced, and auto repair shops in Israel will gain more business," he says.
Commander Chico Menashe, head of the Etgar unit, commenting on the scope of illegal transactions in the automobile sector in Israel, emphasized the safety issue involved in the dismal statistics.
The vehicles repaired in the territories, he says, are described in the unit as "death machines" because "they don't hold up in accidents. In a number of cases people have been critically injured and even killed because their car fell apart on the road while driving."
The black market for used cars in Israel costs the state NIS 3 billion annually - a figure that includes the 15-percent increase in insurance fraud since the beginning of the year. Menashe tells of one used car business in Nes Tziona recently found to have sold 470 faulty vehicles.
The owners reported revenues of NIS 600,000, but in fact earned more than NIS 10 million. "An assessor estimated repairs on a faulty vehicle at NIS 40,000. In fact, the car was repaired in the territories for NIS 3,000."
Chairman of the Israel Garage Association, Ronen Levy, who supports the legislation wholeheartedly, added that thousands of automobiles are sold every year to agents who arrange for inexpensive and unprofessional repair work in the territories.
At the end of the questionable process the cars are returned to Israel and sold to unsuspecting customers. These cars, he added, are also often used to forge the identity of stolen cars, by transposing identifying parts.