- A driver travelling through Kenilworth during December last year could not believe his eyes when he spotted another vehicle identical to his, sporting the same registration number.
- The incident was reportedly published on a community traffic WhatsApp group.
- Authorities claim the incident had not been reported
A driver travelling through Kenilworth during December last year could not believe his eyes when he spotted another vehicle identical to his, sporting the same registration number.
The incident was reportedly published on a community traffic WhatsApp group. It happened on the corner of Carton and Loch roads, Kenilworth.
However, the City’s traffic services spokesperson Kevin Jacobs told People’s Post that this incident had not been reported.
Claremont police’s Vispol Commander Lt Col Marnus Fourie also said the incident had not been reported to police.
However, the incident was shared on the Western Cape Stolen & Hijacked Vehicles Facebook group on Sunday 17 December.
A group admin continued to comment on the post, saying “it happens . . . the syndicates are good at what they do, but they do from time to time cross the wrong police officers and, or in this case, the legit vehicle owner. The vehicle with the copied plates was indeed sought in a Kleinvlei [case].”
Attempts to confirm any links to the possible Kleinvlei case could not be verified by the Western Cape police. Instead, the People’s Post was referred to Wynberg police for official confirmation of the incident.
However, by the time of going to print no official confirmation by police was made. This, despite video footage of the incident showing police responding to the scene.
Fraudulent license plate trends
People’s Post also turned to the admin of the Western Cape Stolen & Hijacked Vehicles NPC Facebook group to learn more about this and similar number plate cloning trends across the province.
According to its Director and CEO, who wished to remain anonymous as a safety precaution, duplicated or stolen number plates are often found and also used by various syndicates / crime participants.
“Examples are vehicle thieves or ATM scammers etc. What often occurs is these syndicates will hire a legitimate vehicle from for example AVIS, put on the duplicated/stolen plates on this vehicle, commit the crime spree and return the vehicle. “It’s only through deep dive investigations that slight differences are picked up, like the placement of the license disk, difference in the spacing on number plates, etc.”
This trend is not necessarily area specific to Kenilworth, he added, saying this is seen across the Western Cape and the rest of the country.
“Related trends are seen where vehicle owners are often found using an old number plate, previously registered to the vehicle, on their vehicle. Yet, it’s already allocated a newplate, disc etc. So they would place the correct disc on the vehicle but continue driving with old plates.”
He explained that this is done to avoid traffic camera fines, for example, as the old plate is then registered or used on another vehicle. “So the poor person driving this vehicle would get ‘love letters’ from the Traffic Department. These fines are often paid with the recipient not really checking the details in an effort to keep their record clean, meanwhile, it’s not even their vehicle actually committing the offence,” he added.
This practice additionally causes major issues with stolen or hijacked vehicle cases, “as the CAS No is linked to the vehicle Registration No (the correct one) and not the old plate, often causing gaps if a vehicle is eventually found/recovered”.
The Director also shared interesting insights from their group, citing 2023 statistics:
- 970 Vehicles sought
- 483 Vehicles recovered
- 116 Vehicles not circulated
“ ‘Not circulated’ means that, between getting the information from the data source to us doing a Sought Poster, the vehicle owner never reported the matter [to police] and / or the vehicle was so quickly found that the owner didn’t even get to Saps… You’ll be shocked how many people don’t report their vehicles as stolen to Saps.”
He adds this causes issues, “especially if found by partners (like Saps, traffic police etc.) because they would be standing down to a ‘reported’ vehicle, sometimes containing criminal suspects, and then there is no CAS no to exercise any arrests.”
