Dozens of vehicles with fake paper license plates seized in Bronx crackdown
Deputy sheriffs seized dozens of vehicles with bogus paper license plates on Bronx streets during an overnight crackdown Friday, officials said.
Authorities swept the 45th Precinct in Co-Op City and the bordering 47th Precinct in the north Bronx between around midnight and 6 a.m. — netting 76 illicit vehicles, New York City Sheriff Joseph Fucito said.
The officials used license-plate-reader technology to identify some of the offending vehicles, according to New York City Sheriff Joseph Fucito.
Two of the rogue vehicles were tractor-trailers, and others including a bucket truck, he said.
The sheriffs will probe who really owns the cars, Fucito said.
“Having fraudulent plates on your vehicle opens up the motorist to a slew of vehicle and traffic and parking offenses, as well as potential tax offenses for not paying commercial motor-vehicle tax or motor-vehicle-tax usage,” Fucito told The Post during the operation.
The owners will be held responsible for any outstanding judgments for unpaid speed, camera, and parking-violation summonses, as well as any criminal sanctions for their actions, Fucito said.
“We think this is a very important project because these license plates are used to avoid the various safety cameras that are in place — the speed, the red-light-camera system, also the toll systems in New York City,” the sheriff said.
Over the past two months, deputy sheriffs previously seized 120 vehicles, and more than 100 people were slapped with criminal and civil offenses related to displaying the fake plates, according to Fucito.
In a Brooklyn operation last month, sheriffs seized 43 vehicles with bogus paper plates from the confines of the 69th, 63rd and 67th Precincts — which include neighborhoods such as Canarsie, Flatbush and Mill Basin.
The latest overnight operation brings the total number of bogus-plate vehicles seized by the sheriff’s office to 196.
