Thread: TX. Investigators Working to Stop Fake Paper License Plates Sales Online

Investigators Working to Stop Fake Paper License Plates Sales Online

Posted: Sep 09, 2016 8:25 PM PDTUpdated: Sep 09, 2016 8:25 PM PDT

MCALLEN - Hidalgo County’s vehicle fraud investigators said they are seeing a huge problem of fake paper license plates. They said the plates are being sold to unsuspecting buyers.

Hidalgo County Chief Fraud Investigator Martin Cepeda said it’s a huge problem in the Rio Grande Valley. He said their two-man team is busier than other counties across the state because of our proximity to the border.

“We got vehicles from Mexico that are 100 percent Mexican vehicles… (They’re) driving around with these type of plates, and every month they will change the plate out,” he said.

A CHANNEL 5 NEWS viewer sent us an image of a Facebook post. A woman was advertising paper license plates in an online pulga.

The post showed the plates were being sold for $40 a month or $60 for two months.

Fraud investigators remind people that selling paper license plates is illegal. Cepeda also warned falsifying government documents is a felony.

“People need to understand that you cannot buy plates online, it’s illegal. You cannot go to la pulga. People advertising themselves on Facebook selling plates, it’s illegal.

You can’t do that,” he said.

Cepeda said there are also consequences for buying fake plates.

“We can cite them. They’ll pay about $600 per citation.

But we can tell that these are innocent buyers who don’t understand and don’t know the law,” he said.

Cepeda said the sellers are hard to catch.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS contacted the seller. She responded saying she could get a plate made ASAP.

We gave her a VIN number, a name and address. She asked to meet at a place to hand over the license plate.

Once there, we saw a woman drive by twice; she looked like our possible seller. After some time, she left.

She later sent us a text message saying that the VIN number we gave her didn’t match the name, and that she couldn’t sell it to us.

Cepeda said the fraudulent plates are easy to make. He said the people who buy them are often desperate.

“People that don’t have driver’s licenses, they need to move,” Cepeda said. “They need transportation, they need to go to work and they need to move their kids around. But they got to be very careful, because they’re going to end up getting into trouble.”

He said it’s a problem that keeps piling up, but that his office will continue trying to put a stop to it one case at a time.

http://www.krgv.com/story/33062647/i...s-sales-online

The woman selling the paper plate is a liar as there is no consumer database that
match's vehicle owner name with a vehicle vin number.

I know this because I have been exporting cars overseas for 15 years and only US Customs has access to this information to prevent stolen vehicles from leaving the country.

She is full of crap and suspected she was being framed!

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