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.
For 2024, there were 60 operations resulting in 734 arrests, 3,423 towed vehicles and 34,075 summonses issued, and the scofflaws stopped amounted to $45.7 million in unpaid tolls and fees, judgments and debts.
So far this year, there have been 13 toll enforcement operations resulting in 168 arrests, 650 towed vehicles and 5,775 summonses issued, totaling approximately $4.6 million in unpaid tolls and fees, judgments and debts.