00:00G'day, I'm Paul. We've shot a stack of videos now on the huge uptick in thefts of late model
00:05Holdens, HSVs, in fact just cars in general in Victoria but it's happening all across Australia
00:11specifically with youth crime as well. Today I want to focus on a topic of cloned registration
00:17plates and you know after joining some of these Facebook groups to get all of the information I
00:22need on the stolen Holdens I've been inundated with like messages from these groups and all the
00:27stuff that's happening and clone plates is one of the things that thieves are using to get away with
00:32driving stolen cars on the road for such a long time without the police doing so I'm going to run
00:36you through how it all works and the things to look out for. Now while we were researching this I mean
00:41you couldn't even script this here at work a car pulled up and I saw the two people getting out of
00:47the car and the way that it was parked they were like frantic and it just looked like junkies they
00:52just looked like they were probably about to steal something. Anyway I had a look at the rego on the
00:57car and I ran it through the VicRoads website which tells you whether the car is stolen or what's
01:02going on with it and according to the VicRoads site it had current registration and everything
01:06was fine it wasn't listed as stolen so I was just like eh whatever I'll just get on with life they're
01:11probably just you know super excited to be unloading all the stuff from their car and just being weird
01:16in the corner of the car park and Sean video man Sean came out like 30 minutes later and I called him
01:22I said it was just so weird I saw this car in the car park and anyway when he came out they were
01:28loading what we believe to be stolen items into the vehicle from a business just nearby and by this time
01:36the police were called and they had driven off but Sean had the foresight to take a few photos of the car
01:42and we then when we had a closer look at them realized what was going on and first dead giveaway here
01:49what is the reason of clone plates first so if you go out and steal a car immediately or shortly
01:55after the owner is going to call the police and say hey my car's stolen it was taken today this is
02:00what happened they will then log it as a stolen vehicle and when you go to the VicRoads site you
02:05look up the rego it comes up with something totally different it says that it's stolen so if the police
02:09with AMPR that's automatic rather number plate recognition drive past your vehicle your stolen
02:16vehicle it will pop up on their computer they'll flick a u-turn and be able to intercept the vehicle
02:20but to avoid detection what thieves are doing is stealing a vehicle and immediately or shortly after
02:27changing the registration plates now in this particular case here with this Golf what these
02:32guys have done they've stolen that car that car is stolen but what they've done is they've found
02:37a sort of bronze colored Volkswagen Golf of a similar age and cloned the number plate and that means
02:43they've taken the registration plate off the vehicle they've seen driving down the road typically
02:47they'll look at the driver and just make sure that it is like a driver that is going to pay their bills
02:52continuously because then they can reproduce that registration plate put it on their stolen vehicle
02:58and if a police car drives past that vehicle all they're going to see is that it's it's a it's a
03:03bronze colored Golf that's currently registered they won't think anything of it but you can always look a
03:08little bit closer and the first dead giveaway is here so beneath that white sheet of paper there
03:13is the vehicle's vid that is a 17 digit code that is unique to every single car and typically they're
03:20visible on the outside here and they're visible then on other parts of the body that basically identify
03:26that vehicle so that if it's ever lost or stolen or whatever you can trace its movements what they've
03:31done here is put some receipts there so to the naked eye it just looks like someone who's just lobbed a
03:36whole bunch of receipts on their dashboard but what they've done is they've covered up the vin so that
03:40if you were to see this car parked on the side of the road like we did you can't see the vin and you
03:45can't determine for certainty that it's stolen if you were able to see that vin or get another vin from
03:50the vehicle and run it through that vic road site you could actually see immediately that it's stolen
03:54because someone would have reported this stolen then what they've done is gone and made their own
03:58registration plates and the first giveaway here is the one it looks completely wrong so i'll show you
04:04an example here the right hand side of the picture is off a vehicle that we're driving at the moment
04:08in the car park you can see the one is quite defined whereas the one on their homemade registration plate
04:14has rounded edges to it the vic on the left hand side is different as well the the e is quite thin too
04:21so there's a number of issues here that perhaps you wouldn't notice if you just drove past the vehicle
04:25but when you do have a look at it closer you do notice it and if you type back in with the stolen
04:30uh hsvs and holdens this is one that that someone uh posted on a stolen cars page i mean this person
04:37hasn't even gone to any effort here to create a registration plate this just looks completely
04:43dodgy the issue that they have here though is that with all of these plates typically they don't reflect
04:48when there's light against them and that is the easiest way to tell if a registration plate is fake
04:53that when it has light uh shone on it it doesn't reflect and it's something that they use to avoid speed
04:59cameras and all that sort of stuff so what they're now doing is these thieves learn very quickly
05:04they're basically taking these dodgy plates that they make at home and what they're doing is they're
05:07applying layers of reflective tape on the sections that require the letters and numbers and they're
05:12getting them laser printed and there was a lady that had her car recovered that was stolen and she
05:17posted this to a facebook group we thank her for letting us use this footage um she basically said
05:22that when she got the car recovered that she found all of this material on there and was able to
05:27have a close look at it and she was in the business of screen screenwriting or printing or something
05:31like that and was able to identify the material so they're now going to extra lengths here and from
05:36what we've heard they're actually getting these produced at the markets uh these plates are typically
05:41produced in in prisons they keep the the prisoners ironically quite busy making registration plates for
05:46cars but um these particular fake plates can actually be bought at markets and other places illegally so
05:52it is just fascinating and one of the things they're doing to overcome this issue overseas is
05:57with digital plates and we've seen these in california before where the plate itself looks perfectly normal
06:02but it's typically solar powered and it receives information wirelessly so if a car is stolen that
06:09registration plate can immediately be changed to say stolen vehicle or something completely different
06:14and it's one that is very hard to to change because it is entirely digital so i think there's a long way to go
06:20here in in victoria and in australia in general for vicroad specifically they actually sold off the
06:25registration uh the plates division to a third party company and uh they they announced a couple of
06:31years ago i think it was before the sale that they're adding uh this other sort of reflection
06:35technology that when you look at the plate from a diagonal angle that it sort of comes up with
06:39different um different symbols on it uh but that only applies to your general issue plates like your
06:44your ones and your twos these slimline plates don't have any of that technology and this has been going around
06:49for for quite some time now there is no easy fix and i said this in the other video it really just
06:54frustrates me that if you or i uh forget to pay our rego or something like that you will get nailed
06:59with like a 900 fine you will be chased by the courts because you're an honest person you'll pay that
07:05you'll pay all the fees and and whatever whereas these people like the fact that these guys in broad
07:11daylight were emptying this car on the ground went and stole some other stuff and just do not care
07:19just tells you that that the laws are so weak that even if they did get caught they would probably
07:23just get bail and then they'd be on their merry way as well so anyway uh it's just a short video
07:28to explain cloned plates and and how to spot them if you see them out on the road if you do spot them
07:33let the police know because they will contact the owner of a vehicle like this that that gold golf and
07:39they'll say to them hey your car is being used for this the only time they're able to actually
07:43know that this is happening is in the original owner of that car and those plates
07:47is that they start getting fines in the mail saying you know you were speeding on this freeway that
07:52you've never been to and you look at the picture and like hold on that's my car but i wasn't there
07:57they then call the police and they explain to them that they're cloned plates but if the thieves are
08:01being smart they won't speed they won't get parking fines and they'll get away with driving a car like
08:05this for months on end and then if they ever do get caught or the rego gets cancelled they'll just go
08:09find another gold golf which is probably lots of and just cloned another plate so
08:13unfortunately it is a thing that is going to keep happening so anyway let me know your thoughts in
08:17the comments section below it is crazy what's going on at the moment and the volume of this crime
08:22that's going on is there an easy way to stop it let me know what you reckon do you have any other
08:26stories you want to share as well has this happened to you i'm keen to hear let me know in the comments
08:30section below if you did enjoy this video please make sure you like it you share it with your mates
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