{"id":160034,"date":"2025-08-20T03:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160034\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T03:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:06:10","slug":"mta-and-new-york-law-enforcement-agencies-celebrate-100th-ghost-plate-enforcement-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160034\/","title":{"rendered":"MTA and New York law enforcement agencies celebrate 100th ghost plate enforcement operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"cops\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Interagency vehicle enforcement operation at the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge on Monday, Aug 19, 2024.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy MTA\/Marc A. Hermann<\/p>\n

MTA police<\/a>, NYPD and other law enforcement agencies seized more than 5,300 vehicles with fake or altered license plates since the crackdown on \u201cghost cars\u201d began on March 11, 2024.<\/p>\n

During its 100th sting on Tuesday at the RFK Bridge in upper Manhattan, MTA officials highlighted results of city and state-led operations, which in total reached 5,343 vehicles towed for suspended registrations and fraudulent, obstructed or altered license plates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGhost cars<\/a>\u201d are vehicles that are virtually untraceable by traffic cameras and toll readers because of their forged or altered license plates. Unbillable tolls from ghost plates have dropped 20% since the operation began.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t tolerate bad actors using obscured and fraudulent license plates to avoid detection while committing crimes,\u201d MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber said. \u201cPublic safety is the priority, and if you cover your plates, you will get caught and you will pay the price \u2013 not just the toll you evaded.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the MTA, so far this year there have been 38 enforcement operations, which resulted in 1,893 towed vehicles with approximately $11.5 million in unpaid tolls and fees, judgments and debts owed to all task force partners. MTA Police and Bridge and Tunnel officers alone have issued 16,000 summonses year-to-date the agency said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to the MTA police, law enforcement from state and city agencies that are part of the operations include the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Suffolk and Nassau police departments, the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, Westchester County Police Department, among others.<\/p>\n

Mayor Eric Adams said that since 2022, NYC agencies alone removed over 110,000 additional ghost cars and illegal vehicles.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers deserve streets that are safe for families and communities, and that\u2019s what this multi-agency city-state task force has helped deliver for more than a year,\u201d Adams said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although covering, removing or altering license plates has been going on for years, officials said the illegal activity proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police sources have said that fake \u201ctemp tags,\u201d the ones that look like dealership or out-of-state cars, provide a source of anonymity in which drivers can sometimes commit more serious crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGhost cars aren\u2019t just illegal \u2013 they are a public safety threat,\u201d NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch said. \u201cSince March 2024, the NYPD and our law enforcement partners have worked together to crack down on unregistered and untraceable cars that are often used to evade police and enable other crimes. One hundred operations later, the results are clear: more than 5,300 illegal cars taken off the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interagency vehicle enforcement operation at the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge on Monday, Aug 19, 2024. Photo courtesy MTA\/Marc A. Hermann…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,92788,92789,34311,5288,9904,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,92790,11900,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-160034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ghost-plates","10":"tag-ghost-vehicles","11":"tag-janno-lieber","12":"tag-mayor-eric-adams","13":"tag-mta","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-nypd-commissioner-jessica-tisch","21":"tag-transit","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115058887011475143","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}