Stolen licence plates making life difficult for Ontario residents and police

Losing a licence plate to theft isn’t just annoying, it can link an innocent person to crimes they did not commit.

Peel police say that on May 27, Priyanka Kashyap of Brampton arrived at the 22 Division front desk to report a stolen licence plate. 

Peel authorities have told INsauga.com that — at the initial time of the report — little could be done in the way of an investigation, as there was a lack of sufficient evidence to prove that the licence plate was stolen and not lost.  

It wasn’t until after the victim received numerous tickets associated with her stolen plate from the town of Milton that the status of her plate was changed on the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) to “stolen.”

“On the 18th of June, [Peel Regional Police] were contacted by Halton Regional Police advising us that the licence plate in question had been recovered, as it was seized from a suspect vehicle in Milton,” Const. Tyler Bell told INsauga.com.

According to Bell, stolen plate incidents run parallel to the standard for auto crimes in the Peel Region. However, while these incidents may not be as common as other crimes, they still gain the attention of regional authorities.

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“It’s a fairly well-known occurrence for officers that licence plates get stolen, usually to assist in a cooling off period surrounding criminal behaviour. For instance, a criminal might steal an F-150, find a similar vehicle, swap the plates and start driving around in a vehicle virtually undetectable to police,” Bell says. 

In such an event, authorities can’t do much without substantial evidence, as if nothing gets recorded alongside the initial report — such as proof of tampering — the plate’s status will simply be registered as “missing.”

As a result, victims with no evidence of theft can only contact Service Ontario and await the arrival of a new plate. This leaves victims at a disadvantage in the meantime, as while awaiting their new credentials, they can be subject to crimes perpetrated by the new holder of their vehicle’s credentials. 

“In this circumstance, all odds were stacked against the people who reported this plate stolen, because information surrounding this initial theft came well after the fact. They came into the station not fully aware whether their plates had been stolen and then indicated that they were getting 407 bills,” Bell says. 

These charges — related to express tolls on Highway 407 — were just some of the invoices Kashyap and her family faced after the theft. After the plates were registered as missing, authorities engaged Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) to ensure that all parties remained on the same page in the event that further evidence emerged. 

“That inter-agency collaboration is pretty efficient, however, if we are talking about charges surrounding parking enforcement or the 407, there is a delay, because those parties may or may not have sufficient access to Ministry of Transportation records,” says Bell. 

This communication breakdown then forces victims to remain in regulatory limbo, where charges and invoices continue to pile on their front doorstep. However, Bell assured INsauga.com that while undue charges may impact original plate owners, they can be retroactively removed. 

However, this may then cause more hassle for an already overwhelmed victim. 

“[The victim] will get some sort of a reference number from the Ministry of Transportation and it is absolutely a pain for someone who has had their life tampered with to have to do that sort of legwork,” says Bell. 

As for ways to prevent this sort of financial blindsiding, the police’s solution remains straightforward; as Bell told INsauga.com, “I can’t think of a way off the top of my head for how to avoid it, other than to enforce the law and catch the people doing the crime.”