‘Ghost plate’ cowboys exposed: Number plates invisible to speed cameras sold by official DVLA-registered suppliers as criminals and boy racers exploit shocking loophole, Mail investigation reveals

Britain’s broken number plate system was exposed today by a Daily Mail investigation that identified official suppliers selling number plates invisible to road cameras.

Ministers have been warned that a highly unregulated vehicle registration regime is being exploited by thousands of criminal and unscrupulous drivers across the country.

It is now feared that one in 15 cars is fitted with so-called ‘ghost plates’ designed to avoid detection by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras.

It is feared that their explosion in popularity poses a serious national security risk that could lead to terrorists infiltrating the network and is already being exploited by grooming gangs.

Our reporter was able to purchase a set of ghost plates from a DVLA registered supplier, who was unable to carry out any checks to verify that they were indeed the registered owner of the car.

The license plates boasted 4D raised letters that experts say road cameras struggle to read properly and can effectively make them invisible to surveillance.

But when researchers from Cranfield University tested the Mail’s plates in a specialist laboratory, they found another layer of stealth, with all but one of the characters made of transparent material.

Shocking images showed that when photographed in any environment other than dazzling daylight, the plates appeared blank except for a single letter.

The plate also appeared mostly blank when photographed in partial light, due to the transparent material used on six of the seven letters.

Other characters on the plates were only visible when photographed in dazzling sunlight

Ghost plates featured so-called 4D letters with characters raised from the flat surface; This can confuse road cameras by creating shadows and distortions.

Daily Mail reporter Jack Hardy was able to obtain the ghost plates without any checks through an official supplier registered with the DVLA.

Dr Stuart Barnes, who analyzed the plates for the Mail, said: ‘These are true ghost plates, using a special material intended to be invisible to most ANPR cameras operating at night.

‘To the naked eye the characters look the same as those on other plates, so it’s difficult to identify ghost plates just by looking at them.

‘You can only see the difference when you view them with an ANPR type camera.’

This would make it illegal to use them on the roads, although our reporter bought them from a supplier listed on the national register and their number plates bear full road legal markings.

A second set of 4D plates purchased by the Mail from a separate supplier (again without any checks) was found to have thinned characters that ‘potentially confused the ANPR camera’ when photographed, according to academics.

Both suppliers are facing investigations by the DVLA following a tip-off from the Mail.

The government is being called on to tighten the law to explicitly ban number plates using so-called 3D and 4D characters, the sale of which is not currently illegal due to a strange loophole.

Sarah Coombes MP, who is campaigning for tougher penalties for ghost number plates, said: ‘This Daily Mail investigation shows just how broken the UK’s number plate system is.

‘Dangerous illegal number plates are very easy to buy and criminals and dangerous car racers use them to evade the law every day.

‘This Wild West license plate is great for criminals, terrible for the rest of us.

‘We urgently need tougher penalties for those caught with ghost plates, and we need much stricter controls and background checks on people selling plates in the first place.’

Separate plates purchased by the Mail had thinned characters that ‘potentially confuse the ANPR camera’ when photographed under infrared – the ‘G’ here already looked like a ‘C’

Both sets of 4D plates were shipped within a few days by two separate suppliers, although no checks were made to verify the vehicle’s ownership.

The plates ordered by our reporter used the fictitious ‘DM17 GTZ’ registration, which includes letters from the abbreviation of the Mail’s parent group, Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT).

The ease with which the Mail can obtain illegal number plates from an official supplier reveals many serious flaws in the way Britain regulates its roads.

Almost uniquely in the West, Britain allows anyone to become an official plate supplier by paying a one-off fee of just £40, without any criminal record checks.

A recent report by MPs found there are now an ‘eye-watering’ 34,455 suppliers – four times the number of petrol stations in the UK – and that the system is ‘wide open to abuse’.

Convicted fraudsters and criminals linked to ‘murder, firearms, drugs, robbery and violent assault’ were identified among authorized suppliers by trading standards investigators.

In this background, there is a system in which there is almost no application of rules.

The DVLA employs just ‘five or six’ staff to police the rapidly growing number of number plate dealers, leading to warnings that the market is ‘largely unregulated’.

When the Mail began its own investigation, the sheer arrogance of some companies promoting their products as ‘ghost plates’ showed how little fear they had of being caught.

The order was placed in just a few clicks and the plates were mailed in a short time, although there was no checking by the seller.

Failure to verify vehicle ownership can have serious consequences as it allows criminals to copy license plates of cars they do not own and impose fines on innocent drivers.

The plates ordered by our reporter used the fictitious ‘DM17 GTZ’ registration, which includes letters taken from the acronym of the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), the Mail’s parent group.

Suppliers did not seem to realize the possible connection between the plates and the Daily Mail, despite the delivery address being our London newsroom.

The license plates were likely to be invisible to cameras, as the raised characters would create shadows that would make them difficult to distinguish.

But when a set was tested at Cranfield University, it turned out characters weren’t the only thing that could annoy road cameras.

Six of the seven letters were made of material that became transparent under infrared light, which ANPR uses at night or in low visibility conditions.

“Characters completely disappear under infrared illumination,” Dr Barnes said.

Even though the supplier hasn’t advertised this as explicitly saying it’s 4D plates, they seem to know how to use the product and manufacture it accordingly.

The growing popularity of ghost license plates is already causing headaches for police; MPs are realizing they are now being used by grooming gangs and organized crime syndicates.

The Met Police are increasingly concerned terrorists could exploit what they call a ‘critical vulnerability to national security’.

But critics warn ordinary drivers also have an ‘incentive’ to get ghost plates due to controversial green policies such as the camera-protected Ulez district of London.

A report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Transport Safety has called for a ‘reorganisation’ of the number plate sales system, including a ban on 4D and 3D plates.

A spokesperson for the DVLA said: ‘There are strict laws in place requiring plate suppliers to be properly registered with the DVLA and robust standards of identity for buyers.

‘The DVLA is working with the police and Trading Standards to enforce these strict rules and we will investigate reports of suppliers who do not comply with the law.

‘On top of this there is also a review of current number plate standards which aims to ban the production of number plates specifically designed to evade Automatic Number Plate recognition cameras.’