Cops Bust Huge Illegal Car Registration Ring
Friday, 20 Jun 2008, 5:28 PM EDT
Pennsylvania state police have broken up a huge scheme to illegally register hundreds, possibly thousands of cars in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.
Four people are under arrest, charged with forgery, identity theft, conspiracy and falsifying official documents.
State police say this scheme has the potential to affect thousands of innocent people who had their personal identity information used to register cars for people who couldn’t register one legally.
It’s all part of a widesweeping, 15-month-long investigation.
Andrew Shapiro, 48, had a thriving auto tag business until Friday when he and four others got busted in a big scheme to illegally register cars.
State police say the suspects processed forged registration papers for hundreds of people who couldn’t get cars registered legally.
Shapiro runs Bassett Auto Tags. Troopers raided the place and arrested Shapiro. They say the suspects processed almost 300 phony car registrations in two months.
The phony registrations let the drivers get away with just about anything.
“You don’t have to worry about parking tickets, going through red lights, E-Z pass, if your robbing banks,” said one official.
State police say they got onto this scheme when Philadelphia police stopped a stolen car and noticed something strange about the registration papers. They called troopers and the state police audited the auto tag places.
Police say anyone from illegal aliens to terrorists could have used the illegal registration scheme to hide their criminal activity.
Investigators say the cars registered in the scam would not have to have insurance and that could cost legally registered drivers plenty.
State police believe the suspects in the scheme were making at least $50 per registration, that could add up to more than $10,000.
The suspects are being held on $50,000 bail each.
If your identity was used in this scheme you can get help to straighten things out by calling PENNDot’s dealer services bureau in Harrisburg.
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