Important Notice on Purchase of Second Hand Vehicles from Japan

The Embassy of Japan in Nairobi has received reports of problems related to importing used vehicles to Kenya from Japan through internet transactions. These are cases in which importers have transferred money to entities that claim to be authentic second-hand vehicle dealers in Japan and the latter failed to ship the vehicles after receiving the payment. 
 

There have also been reverse cases of online transactions in which the vehicles were shipped to Kenya and the importers failed to transfer money to the sellers.
 

The Embassy wishes to advise those who encounter trouble while importing a car and consider it as a fraud to file a report with the Kenya Police.  The Japan Police conducts investigations in good faith to crackdown such fraud cases based on the requests and reports received from the Kenya Police through the International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO).  The investigations, however, do not always guarantee that the desired outcome is obtained.
 

The Embassy also wishes to advise prospective buyers to exercise caution when entering into online purchase transactions by exercising due diligence to verify the current operating status of the exporters to avoid trouble.
 

Some Japanese second-hand vehicles dealers are aware of the problem and are taking voluntary preventive actions. In an effort to ease the process of identifying vehicle exporters, a private industrial association - the Japan Used Motor Vehicles Exporters Association (JUMVEA www.jumvea.or.jp) sent a mission to Kenya to meet with the Kenya Auto Bazaar Association (KABA) and informed members’ list of vehicle dealers. Prospective individual buyers of used vehicles from Japan may find the JUMVEA members’ list useful, though the Embassy of Japan is not in a position to guarantee the authenticity of each member.