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New York City Mayor Eric Adams today announced a new interagency task force that will help remove illegal “ghost cars” — cars that are virtually untraceable by traffic cameras and toll readers because of their forged or altered license plates — from parking spaces on city streets. As of last week, 15 uniformed members of service of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) will be assigned strictly to parked ghost car removal, under the direction of the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY). The task force began regular operations on September 10th, and over the first five nights of operations alone removed 295 ghost cars, freeing up space for New Yorkers who follow safety and regulatory requirements.
“Far too often, ghost cars are not only used to evade toll readers, but are also being used in more serious crimes, including shootings, robberies, and hit-and-runs. This new task force will identify, target, and tow illegal ghost cars that are parked on our streets as the DSNY and the NYPD become the real-life ghost busters,” said Mayor Adams. “Today, we are sending an important message to everyone who drives on the streets of our city: fake plates are a real crime and if you leave a car on city streets with forged, stolen, or altered plates, it won’t be there when you get back. Our streets must be safer, and that’s why our teams will continue to work 24/7 to ensure New Yorkers’ safety.”
“The era of the free ride is over. Whether you’re using a ghost plate to evade a toll or create a menace on our streets, you will be caught and you will be prosecuted,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi. “Parked or moving, if you’re obscuring your plates, our city is coming for you.”
“Ghost cars come in many flavors. The owners of these vehicles evade detection from law enforcement by operating with no plates, fake plates, plates not registered to a vehicle, or expired plates,” said DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “These untraceable vehicles show up at the scenes of serious crimes like robbery, trafficking, or assault. Ghost car drivers have been caught with firearms, caught leaving the scene of a crash, and more. Now, we have a strategy to get them where they’re parked, every hour of every day.”
“We and DSNY are now sweeping up ghost vehicles where they park in our communities, multiplying the NYPD’s established success in identifying and seizing illegal cars, trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles being driven on our roadways,” said NYPD Interim Police Commissioner Thomas G. Donlon. “This is the clear mandate of our newest interagency task force and the next step toward breaking the well-known link between violent crime and unregistered vehicles.”
“Red light and speed cameras save lives and keep New Yorkers safe. Drivers that use forged, obstructed, or altered plates to cheat the system put all of us at risk,” said New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. “Getting ghost cars off our streets improves the lives of hard-working New Yorkers who follow the rules. We thank Mayor Adams, DSNY, NYPD, and our sister agencies for all their work to get these vehicles off the roads.”
Current city and state enforcement efforts against ghost cars — which have been used in everything from hit-and-run collisions to robberies and shootings — focus on enforcing against these automobiles while in motion, on the streets, or at toll plazas. This new task force will apply interagency best practices to the rest of the day, when these unregistered, uninsured, or stolen vehicles are parked. This mirrors a prior interagency collaboration between the NYPD and DSNY on a related issue — removing abandoned and derelict vehicles from streets. In the first year of that effort, the Abandoned Vehicle Task Force — structured similarly, with NYPD officers detailed to DSNY — the number of vehicles removed from city streets by DSNY more than doubled.
The vehicles seized by this task force will be held at NYPD lots where they will be processed and either claimed, auctioned, or destroyed after all investigations are complete.
This work builds on additional ongoing efforts to combat ghost cars. In March, Mayor Adams, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chair and CEO Janno Lieber launched a multi-agency, city-state ghost car task force. The task force includes the NYPD, the New York City Sheriff’s Office, MTA Bridge and Tunnel officers, the New York State Police, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department. On Saturday, the task force completed its 41st operation; in those operations, the task force made 490 arrests, issued 20,640 summonses, and seized 2,303 vehicles whose owners owed a total of over $21 million in unpaid tolls, taxes, fees, and more.
“Today, we are going full throttle to rid our city of the pervasive ‘ghost cars.’ There have been over 20,000 complaints of phony paper plates since their advent during the pandemic,” said New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar. “Drivers of these untraceable cars are using these plates to commit crimes, cover up stolen vehicles, evade their fair share of tolls, and violate traffic laws with impunity. Presumably none of them are carrying insurance, spelling disaster if they are in an accident. This partnership between the NYPD and DSNY, with 15 law enforcement officers devoted exclusively to ghost car removal, will accelerate enforcement to get these dangerous cars off our streets. We have already made incredible progress, removing 295 ghost cars in five days. I am working at the state level to give the city even more enforcement tools, including empowering law enforcement to use VINs to issue summonses when there is a phony plate. Together, we will be the exorcist that banishes the ghost cars haunting New York City.”
“As I highlighted in my Ghost Car Governance report last month, for years bad actors with defaced, obscured, or fraudulent plates have been speeding and running red lights with impunity as well as avoiding paying their fair share in tolls,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “Expanding enforcement against ghost cars is how we make our streets safer and penalize drivers who are trying to cheat the system. Thank you to DSNY and the NYPD for partnering on this important work.”
“Vehicles with fake, forged, or altered plates are an insult to the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Staten Islanders who play by the rules and honestly pay their tolls, car insurance payments, and other associated costs. Worse yet, these vehicles are often used by unscrupulous actors to commit shootings, grand larceny autos, and other more serious crimes,” said Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon. “‘Ghost Cars’ ‘are a massive public safety issue and contribute to New Yorkers’ sense that lawlessness is rampant and perpetrated without consequence in our city. However, thanks to Mayor Eric Adams, the NYPD, and DSNY, the tide is turning as additional resources and manpower have been allocated which finally empower law enforcement to crack down on vehicles with counterfeit license plates and toll violators. With over 2,200 ‘Ghost Cars’ taken off our streets so far, I look forward to working alongside our partners in law enforcement to remove even more of these law-breaking vehicles from our community to improve quality of life and help keep Staten Island the safest borough in all of New York City.”
