The Alberta Motor Vehicle Industry Council is investigating after 99 cars deemed salvage or not repairable were imported to Canada, fixed up and registered as active.

The active designation prevented prospective buyers from discovering the cars had been written off in the U.S. as the result of a crash or a flood, said Bob Hamilton, executive director of AMVIC, a provincial watchdog body.

The cars were bought by the criminal group at salvage auctions in the U.S. and then “washed” of their checkered past, Hamilton said.

“There were a few of them that were flood vehicles, that had spent some time under water after flooding in Florida, but the vast majority of them were from collisions,” he said.

Posted: 02|15|07 at 9:28 am. Filed under: Auction News.