Pulled over yesterday apparently cloned plates

Craterloads

Craterloads

Craterloads

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I got pulled over yesterday at a services down south, was bit more than a pull over actually police waited for me to leave services and on exit two cars blocked me from front and a undercover car from rear, was quite dramatic.

Anyhow found out my plates have been cloned and someone has been on a crime spree using my plates down south.

thought nothing of it at the time but just doesn’t add up.

whilst the officer approached my window the first thing he asked me if I knew that someone has been using cloned plates of my car to commit crimes (same car, colour etc) This was literally the first thing he said before even establishing who I am, It could have been me so how does he know there is a clone or I’m not the clone.

If there was someone commiting crimes with my plates why had I not been contacted prior, surely they would have ran them plates and police would have come to my address.

I asked what sort of crimes and he said robberies, surely the first thing they would do if they had my number plate was to come to my address.

also a bit odd criminals down south using my plates, not sure why they would use mine from other side of country or how they got them as I have not put car up for sale or anything, no pics online etc and can’t even remember the last time I went towards London. They cleared off pretty quickly when I started to ask how that could happen said he needed to clear the road.

perhaps I’m overthinking it but just doesn’t make sense.

this was at Thurrock services near dartford bridge. Thinking I should call the local station or 101 for some clarification or perhaps someone / burnsy can offer clarification?
 
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You probably passed the attitude test the second you:
1) didn't speed away
2) looked like how you do (no disrespect, I just imagine you aren't the organised-crime-plate-cloning looking type though).
 
Crims operate in wide area, they wanted something a good distance away from crime location?

Are there many crims near you?
 
You presumably got dinged by an ANPR in the services and they pulled you in case you were the crims. The force down south likely know its a cloned plate as you live 200 miles away and would have to be spectacularly dumb to use your own car, so visiting you to check if you're a thieving scumbag is a bit pointless. They might have asked the local force if you were known to them and discounted you after that.
 
There are definitely ANPR cameras around that area, I think that is a likely theory. There is also usually a high police presence there too due to it being a single point to cross the river (for some distance), as well as the bridge/tunnel, so it's a good place to catch criminals on the move and would have been an opportunistic encounter rather than pre-planned (hence not going to your address). I would also suspect that just going to the registered address of a plate that is associated with crime is not usually a good tactic if you want to arrest and gain evidence. Most likely, stopping the vehicle itself would be more effective in finding any stolen goods or items associated with the crimes with the suspect at the same time.
 
alex24 said:
There are definitely ANPR cameras around that area, I think that is a likely theory. There is also usually a high police presence there too due to it being a single point to cross the river (for some distance), as well as the bridge/tunnel, so it's a good place to catch criminals on the move and would have been an opportunistic encounter rather than pre-planned (hence not going to your address). I would also suspect that just going to the registered address of a plate that is associated with crime is not usually a good tactic if you want to arrest and gain evidence. Most likely, stopping the vehicle itself would be more effective in finding any stolen goods or items associated with the crimes with the suspect at the same time.
Click to expand...

They probably assumed it may have been the car in question but after seeing the driver, realized it wasn't the perps.
Just guessing here though.
 
snips86x said:
They probably assumed it may have been the car in question but after seeing the driver, realized it wasn't the perps.
Just guessing here though.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is the thing most of these operations evolve in real time - between first detection and the point the police actually got out to approach OPs car a lot could have changed and/or information confirmed one way or the other, etc.
 
I think I'd wonder if there had been an (un?)marked car in my mirror beforehand,
you must know if stop was a pretext eg. earlier driving behaviour, service station behaviour;

I suppose you get an incident number ? in case you started getting speeding/parking tickets.
 
You got snapped on a ANPRN and they assembled the gang and followed you.

I expect the reason they instantly started talking about cloned plates is the colour doesn't match or something obvious like tints.
 
Craterloads said:
I got pulled over yesterday at a services down south, was bit more than a pull over actually police waited for me to leave services and on exit two cars blocked me from front and a undercover car from rear, was quite dramatic.

Anyhow found out my plates have been cloned and someone has been on a crime spree using my plates down south.

thought nothing of it at the time but just doesn’t add up.

whilst the officer approached my window the first thing he asked me if I knew that someone has been using cloned plates of my car to commit crimes (same car, colour etc) This was literally the first thing he said before even establishing who I am, It could have been me so how does he know there is a clone or I’m not the clone.

If there was someone commiting crimes with my plates why had I not been contacted prior, surely they would have ran them plates and police would have come to my address.

I asked what sort of crimes and he said robberies, surely the first thing they would do if they had my number plate was to come to my address.

also a bit odd criminals down south using my plates, not sure why they would use mine from other side of country or how they got them as I have not put car up for sale or anything, no pics online etc and can’t even remember the last time I went towards London. They cleared off pretty quickly when I started to ask how that could happen said he needed to clear the road.

perhaps I’m overthinking it but just doesn’t make sense.

this was at Thurrock services near dartford bridge. Thinking I should call the local station or 101 for some clarification or perhaps someone / burnsy can offer clarification?
Click to expand...

The crimes could have been committed the day before and they would have no chance of doing a check at your home address up north. There will be a force who "owns" the crime where the robberies took place, and it is them who put the marker on your car. If that vehicle hits a camera out of that force area (assuming the two forces in question use different systems), you only get literally 2 lines of text on the national PNC saying what it has been suspected involved in. It then takes someone to have to phone up the "owning" force and find out what has actually gone on in full, which can take a decent while. 8/10 times the police will have to put the stop in before getting the full facts for fear of it getting moving and a pursuit taking place where the suspect vehicle runs over a group of kids and everyone blames the police for it.

They likely could tell you weren't the yardy/traveller type from the fact that you:
A) stopped
B) had eyes like dinner plates
C) were compliant

Also, it makes sense for them to have stopped you down south if that where the cloned vehicle is doing it's crimes and the genuine vehicle (your vehicle) is normally driving around up north. They likely thought that there was a good chance that the vehicle hitting cameras down south was the cloned one, but as it transpired, you had obviously just come down south. Who knows where these people get registration plates from, anywhere and everywhere. The good news is that they normally only use these plates once or twice and then they chuck them and get a clean one. If police stop a suspected cloned vehicle and it turns out to be the genuine vehicle, its a good idea for them to tell the driver of the genuine vehicle to put a sticker or something in the windscreen so that they can tell immediately from the camera image if it's the dodgy one or not.
 
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They probably would have known before they even pulled you over that you wern't the crim tbh.

People using cloned plates to go on a crime spree aren't just going to be casually driving around on them. Unless they are really stupid.
 
Gaygle said:
The crimes could have been committed the day before and they would have no chance of doing a check at your home address up north. There will be a force who "owns" the crime where the robberies took place, and it is them who put the marker on your car. If that vehicle hits a camera out of that force area (assuming the two forces in question use different systems), you only get literally 2 lines of text on the national PNC saying what it has been suspected involved in. It then takes someone to have to phone up the "owning" force and find out what has actually gone on in full, which can take a decent while. 8/10 times the police will have to put the stop in before getting the full facts for fear of it getting moving and a pursuit taking place where the suspect vehicle runs over a group of kids and everyone blames the police for it.

They likely could tell you weren't the yardy/traveller type from the fact that you:
A) stopped
B) had eyes like dinner plates
C) were compliant

Also, it makes sense for them to have stopped you down south if that where the cloned vehicle is doing it's crimes and the genuine vehicle (your vehicle) is normally driving around up north. They likely thought that there was a good chance that the vehicle hitting cameras down south was the cloned one, but as it transpired, you had obviously just come down south. Who knows where these people get registration plates from, anywhere and everywhere. The good news is that they normally only use these plates once or twice and then they chuck them and get a clean one. If police stop a suspected cloned vehicle and it turns out to be the genuine vehicle, its a good idea for them to tell the driver of the genuine vehicle to put a sticker or something in the windscreen so that they can tell immediately from the camera image if it's the dodgy one or not.
Click to expand...

I have nothing to add to this thread but your insights into the inner workings of this stuff interests me, thanks for posting about it :)
 
Thanks for the replies puts my mind at ease.

@Gaygle A, B & C all sound about accurate :cry:

They were pleasant & polite and I think they knew straight away when he first seen me as over heard him says “it’s him” to a colleague when I passed over my ID.

they told me to put some black tape, like a dot on my number plates so they can distinguish better and I should expect to get pulled over more when I get back home. Nice!

anyhow hopefully they catch the scum bags!
 
Got my first PCN from Hackey Council today! This seems like it’s gonna be a right ball ache. Was home all day on offence date so don’t have anything to prove I was in the other side of the country at time of offence

I called Essex police quality service team and lady on phone provided me with police report reference number which I’m hoping should suffice.

She said there is a flag on my number plate and she put another note on it and took all my details.

Have disputed the charge online, will see how we get on.

Any advice on how to deal with this would be appreciated.
 
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