Vehicle cloning is on the rise

OFFICIALLY there are 10 cloned vehicles operating in Gauteng, but unofficially there are probably many more.

The national Department of Transport confirmed there are 10 clones, but the Joburg metro police department (JMPD) is impounding dozens of vehicles each month with false plates, which include clones.

Clones are vehicles with false plates which have been assigned to another vehicle; the second vehicle is the same make and model as the genuine owner, making it harder to pick up the fake.

False plates include made-up numbers which aren’t in the licensing system, and numbers which are in the system but are used on a different make and model of vehicle.

“In terms of the information that the department has received, the number of cloned vehicles that have been captured by our law enforcement systems in and around Gauteng is 10,” Transport Minister Dipuo Peters told Parliament in response to a DA question.

“There has not been an increase in relation to the use of cloned number plates after the rollout of the Gauteng e-toll,” the minister said.

Those clones are not computer errors. “There are no erroneous number plates that have been issued as the system automatically allocates number plates and does not have margin for errors,” Peters said.

The Transport Department was unable to provide further details yesterday.

JMPD spokesman Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said the department has two vehicles with number plate recognition scanners, which are linked to a database to check for false plates. These are used along the roadside to scan vehicles.