Crims using hi-tech methods to clone other people’s number plates

Rob Inglis
November 7, 2018
CROOKS are using 3D printers to make false number plates for stolen cars, a senior cop has revealed.
Inspector Bruce Kitchen said criminals were also using car sales websites like Gumtree to find plates to clone.
Inspector Kitchen said rego plate thefts was still a huge problem with thieves using them for cover to commit crimes like petrol drive-offs, evading police, burglary, robbery and fraud.
“Some of the websites are taking number plates off, which is good,” Inspector Kitchen said.
Product and technology managing director Ajay Bhatia of websitecarsales, said private sellers weren’t required to include a photo displaying their number plate in a listing, but rules for dealers were different.
“State laws govern the rules around the display of number plates for dealers, and these vary in each state and territory,” Mr Bhatia said.
In Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia, the ACT and South Australia, dealers must display car number plates on buy-and-sell websites.
Inspector Kitchen urged residents to install one-way screws on their number plates to make it more difficult for thieves to remove them.
He also car owners should also regularly check that the plates on their car were the originals because thieves were swapping plates to trick car owners.
They steal plates and replace them with very similar ones, Inspector Kitchen said, adding that bought the criminals time in which they could use the genuine plates they had stolen.
Inspector Mark Langhorn reminded drivers to, where possible, secure their car in a garage or somewhere else off the road.
“Sometimes we’ve caught offenders with half a dozen plates that they’ll swap over,” he said.
In the Kingston area, number plate theft increased by 8.5 per cent in the year to June 2018.
In Greater Dandenong and Casey it’s on the slide, down 10.3 per cent and 17.4 per cent in the year to June 2018 respectively.

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