Mokhtar Sidin JCA:

The appellant is the registered owner of a vehicle No. NAJ 1912, a Honda Accord 2.0 EX(i) (hereinafter referred to as "the said vehicle"). He bought the said vehicle for RM70,000. He paid RM10,000 and for the balance of RM60,000 he took a loan from Hong Leong Finance. When the appellant paid the loan in full, he was registered as the owner of the said vehicle on 4 February 1994. On 28 April 1994 the police seized the said vehicle and kept it at the Petaling Jaya Police Station for the purpose of further investigations in order to enable the chemist to determine whether the engine and chassis numbers had been tampered to enable the police to obtain further particulars from Kah Motors Company in respect of the said vehicle. From the evidence there was no dispute that the said vehicle originated from Sabah. After it was brought into West Malaysia, it was registered at the Jabatan Pengangkutan Jalan Negeri Sembilan with the registration number NAJ 1912. Later the Jabatan Pengangkutan Jalan Negeri Sembilan discovered that there was a syndicate falsifying and forging several applications whereby vehicles registered in Sabah were brought into West Malaysia and