'Ghost plate' crackdown: Operation Plate Check underway in New York
Gov. Kathy Hochul says the crackdown runs through Saturday.
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Police are cracking down on license plate fraud this week.
Gov Kathy Hochul says several agencies, including New York State Police and local law enforcement, are joining forces for Operation Plate Check. The operation runs statewide through Saturday. So-called "ghost plates" are at the center of the crackdown.
"Ghost plates are a real big problem, especially here in New York state. People are either concealing their plates to avoid paying their tolls or using them to commit crimes," Yonkers Police Detective Lt. Frank DiDomizio says.
State police didn't reveal where exactly the enforcement is taking place in Westchester, but officials say there's a real need for the crackdown.
Both Yonkers police and New Rochelle police say they've seen an increase in people using ghost plates.
"We've impounded 62 vehicles for improper display for the entire 2025, and this year already we have 25, so we're on our way to having a significant increase," says Capt. Collins Coyne of the New Rochelle Police Department.
According to Fathi Ali, the assistant manager of Odell Service Station, the trend is also starting to reach Westchester auto shops.
"People will ask me, 'Hey, do you guys do ghost plates?' and I'm like, 'No. We don't do ghost plates over here,'" Ali says.
While it may be tempting, Ali says there are legal ways to save money with your GPS.
"If you're planning to go somewhere, you should just put 'no tolls' as an option because if you feel like you don't want to pay tolls, you should have not done that," Ali says.
In the meantime, anyone who thinks having a ghost plate makes them invisible should think again.
"Here in Yonkers, we're actually using a lot of different technology," DiDomizio says. "We're actually able to find different parts of a vehicle, so we can match them as they're coming into Yonkers or leaving Yonkers. So even though they're concealing their plates, we're still able to identify them."
