Cherished Number Plates News

Number plate cloning on the rise

02 September 2008

The authorities think that the current number plate system needs a revamp to beat the car clones.

So why do people clone cars?
There are many different levels of cloning depending on what the criminal wants to do. It could simply be a case of trying to avoid speed cameras or congestion charging. Sometimes cloned cars are used for other criminal activity like robbery, car crime etc.
It is the innocent person whose plate has been cloned who has to prove that they weren’t the one caught speeding or were at the scene of a crime.

How do people clone cars?
This is quite simple really. The criminal looks out for a car of the same make and colour in his local area and makes a note of the registration number. They then go and make up a number plate with this registration and swap it with the one’s on their car. Usually if you went into Halford’s or any other authorized centre to get a set of number plates made, you would be asked for identification and car registration documents. The criminals circumvent this by either knowing someone in the acrylic plate making business or by simply ordering off the Internet, where there are dozens of websites offering to make you a set of number plates for under £10 and no identification is required. The more ardent criminal could just remove the number plates from the car to be cloned and put it on their own.