Fraud Red Flag
Irish-reg laundering
Also known as: cross-border write-off washing
Re-registering a UK write-off in another jurisdiction (commonly Ireland) and bringing it back to the UK with a clean foreign identity.
The DVLA category marker is recorded against the UK registration. Once the vehicle is exported and re-registered abroad, that marker does not always follow it back when the vehicle is later re-imported.
Cross-border write-off databases — the Motor Insurers' Anti-Fraud and Theft Register (MIAFTR) in the UK and equivalent registers in Ireland and elsewhere — close part of the gap, but not all of it. A vehicle with a recent foreign registration on its UK V5C deserves a paid history check that explicitly covers the source country.