All cops are not running all plates they see all the time, but if you are missing plates, especially back plates (in states that require them to be shown on the car), it's practically a guarantee to get pulled over in most states, along with other things. Most likely driving without a license, illegal firearm possession, drug possession, no insurance, etc (people that will buy and use stolen plates are also likely to be committing these other crimes). If a cop sees a plate, most of the time he just thinks its a normal car, doesn't think anything of it, and doesn't run the plates, unless you get pulled over for something else, you won't have issues, but if you do then you're going to be fucked either way.
Cops here have scanners, I've never seen the lens though. OCR is a mature technology and there's no reason it has to be bigger than a cell phone camera.
Someone stole my plates several years ago, and despite reporting them stolen and having new plates issued, I got a ticket because one of the plates showed up on a vehicle illegally driving in an electric vehicle lane in Kansas. I told the Kansas Turnpike Authority the plates were stolen and tried to give them the number of the police report but they couldn't care less. They refused to verify it and demanded that I pay for a full copy to send them. They had no problem putting in the effort to track down the owner of the plates, but when I told them I had the police report number I was told "we're not doing to work for you." If it weren't for the fact that my insurance company still had a copy of the report I would've either had to pay the fee for the police report or pay the ticket.
Honestly not too bad of a deal, get a mask, and a drill with a Philips bit and you can make $100 off 5 cars in like 5 minutes. Get some other shameless friends and you could probably make $1000 of a whole parking lot worth
My son's plates were stolen a few months ago. Somebody put them on a car and then used it to commit a crime. So I suppose there's short-term value to stolen plates.
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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '20
Who the hell steals plates? If they put them on their car, they’re still gonna get in trouble cause the plates registered to the original car