'Ghost Car' Crackdown: NYC Mayor Vows Action Against Fake Plates

NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD have a message for New Yorkers using fake license plates like those found on a stolen Honda that mowed down a grandmother and grandson in Brooklyn last week.

"This ends today," NYPD Chief of Transportation Kim Y. Royster said at a press conference Tuesday about the paper license plates. "This is our warning to all."

The fatal Bed-Stuy crash — which left 67-year-old Lynn Christopher dead and four others hurt after a driver fled police — was among several dangerous incidents that spurred a crackdown on illegal and counterfeit license plates that have skyrocketed during the pandemic, according to city officials.

The Honda driven in the deadly Bed-Stuy rampage had an incorrect, expired South Carolina license plate, police said.

Known as "ghost cars," vehicles with the untraceable paper license plates are often used to evade parking rules, red light cameras, tolls, or as getaway cars in crimes across the city, police said.

The problem has only grown worse since the pandemic, when shut-down DMVs extended expiration dates for many of the temporary plates.

More than 3,560 drivers using the illegal temporary plates were arrested last year, a 300-percent jump from just several years ago in 2016, officials said. In 2021, cars with illegal plates were behind nine traffic fatalities, police said.

"Criminals saw an opportunity [in the pandemic] and they started selling on the internet photocopied plates, altered real ones and completely counterfeit ones that were designed and printed at their homes," Royster said.

Adams and police revealed few details about how their crackdown will differ from previous methods to catch the untraceable drivers, except to point to a new "Vehicle License Plates Working Group" that brings together officials from multiple city agencies.

The working group will lead new "patrol trainings" for officers, who often used to drive past the paper license plates and will be instructed to pull over drivers and inspect the cars, Adams said.
The NYPD will also identify streets where the cars are often parked to boot or tow the cars until their owner is found, officials said.

"If we don’t get them off the streets, they become a weapon of death for our innocent New Yorkers," Adams said.

The NYPD has already issued 16,448 tickets to drivers using the illegal or obstructed license plates, has towed 1,700 vehicles and seized 2,478 of the cars so far this year, officials said. The Sheriff's Office has seized another 800 vehicles in the last year.

About 34 percent of the "ghost cars" towed by the NYPD this year were never claimed by their owners, a statistic officials said proves they were likely stolen or used in illegal activity.

"It’s obvious the individuals who own these cars don’t want to come back for them and you have to ask yourself, 'Why?'" Adams said. "We know why."