What you should know
- Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Adams and law enforcement officials said Tuesday that a multi-agency effort to catch violators resulted in the seizure of 73 vehicles, the issuance of 282 citations and the arrest of eight people.
- The effort involved about 150 officers stationed at three river crossings entering Manhattan.
- They said Monday’s police effort was the first in a series of arrests that state and city police will make about once a month at different locations around the city.
NEW YORK — Authorities in New York are cracking down on what they call “ghost cars,” or vehicles that use altered or falsified license plates to avoid paying tolls and fines.
A multi-agency effort to catch them on Monday resulted in the seizure of 73 vehicles, the issuance of 282 citations and eight arrests, Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and law enforcement officials announced Tuesday. enforce the law.
Officials said it was the first effort by a new state and city task force that will enforce license plate requirements.
Monday’s operation involved about 150 officers using license plate reading technology, visual inspections and other methods to detect fake license plates along three river crossings entering Manhattan: the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge that links three boroughs of New York City, and the George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel, which connect to New Jersey.
“Today the Ghostbusters arrived,” Hochul, a Democrat, said at a news conference on the RFK Bridge. “We are going after the ghost vehicles. The work is finished.”
Toll evasion costs the region’s transportation system about $50 million annually that could be invested in modernizing subways and public buses, said Janno Lieber, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“That’s your money they’re taking,” he said. “That’s tax money.”
Police have seen a clear connection between illegal vehicles and violent crime, Adams said. Vehicles bearing fraudulent or altered plates, or no tags at all, are often unregistered, uninsured or stolen, she said. That makes it difficult to track vehicles and their owners when they are involved in hit-and-runs, robberies, shootings and other crimes.
Some criminals even carry multiple sets of license plates and change them to avoid detection, according to the mayor.
“These ‘ghost vehicles’ are a threat to our roads,” Adams said. “We don’t know who they are. “They disappear into the night.”
To be sure, forging or altering license plates is not new, said New York City Police Department Commissioner Edward Caban.
But the city saw an influx of them during the pandemic, with people purchasing fake plates online that appear to be issued by out-of-state dealerships.
Caban said violators also use spray paint, tape and other materials to hide or alter the numbers and letters on the license plates. Still others purchase devices that a driver can activate to cover the license plate just as his vehicle enters a toll zone, making the license plate unreadable to the toll system’s technology.
2024-03-13 05:16:36
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