New York state officials recently shared the results of the first year of a task force to remove ghost cars, vehicles that are virtually untraceable by traffic cameras and toll readers because of forged or altered license plates, from New York City streets.
The task force works to remove vehicles with fraudulent or modified license plates or no tags. These vehicles are often stolen, uninsured or unregistered. Forging or altering license plates increased during the COVID-19 pandemic when criminals began using counterfeit temporary paper plates to evade detection when conducting hit-and-runs, robberies, shootings and other serious crimes.
The task force conducted 73 toll enforcement operations, since March 11, 2024, that resulted in 902 arrests, more than 39,000 summonses and 4,073 interdicted vehicles for suspended registrations and fraudulent, obstructed or altered license plates…