The number plate cloning crimewave it’s impossible to protect yourself from: By JULIA LAWRENCE who’s battling a blizzard of fines after a thug bought a copy of her licence plate and drove all over London in a VW Golf very like hers

According to the police, I have become something of a threat on the roads lately.

I was the one racing on the A10 at Enfield on April 21st, they say – and not just breaking the 40mph limit – I was dead-footed as I carelessly went 57mph on a very busy road.

I may have narrowly missed you while passing by. Maybe you were about to step into the crosswalk while pushing the stroller… who knows, I wouldn’t care.

Five days later I was back at it again, this time hitting 47 mph in 30 zones. I rolled down my windows and leaned my elbow cheerfully on the window sill.

In the days in between I rewarded myself with a few trips ‘home’ through the Blackwall Tunnel in south London; I passed three times on 26th, 27th and 28th April without paying the £4 fee.

I’m not bothered by parking restrictions either. I park wherever I want, whenever I want; private residential roads, bus lanes, whatever.

It’s no surprise that the letterbox at my home in north London gets a lot of activity. I receive an average of three penalty notices a day from Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police, the UK Parking Authority and Lewisham Council, and this number is rising.

As I write, the postman hasn’t arrived yet, but I expect that ominous clatter as a new wad of menacing white envelopes comes through the door at any moment.

I started to be afraid of this sound. So far I have been fined over £1,200 on paper. Tunnel fines alone are £180 each.

But it wasn’t me who took responsibility for all these traffic crimes, nor was it my husband or my daughter who had insurance for the car.

It was someone else, his evil twin was out there, driving a stolen car with license plates copied from my taxed, insured and well-maintained VW Golf sitting innocently in front of my house, while his evil twin was probably used in all sorts of crimes, trashing our good name and driving records along the way.

We are the latest victims of car number plate cloning, a massive and out-of-control crime wave sweeping the UK and prompting the Private Members’ Bill currently making its way through Parliament.

According to the DVLA, there were 11,394 reports of cloned number plates between January and December 2025 (but emphasizes that some of these may have been administrator error). The car-filled streets of London, where I live, appear to be the epicenter.

A BBC investigation last year found that fines canceled for car cloning rose by 64 per cent in three years, from 22,450 in 2021 to 36,794 in 2023. Even cloned license plate ‘factories’ have been linked to gang-driven crime.

So how did I get caught up in this? Alarmingly simple: having acquired a stolen VW Golf, the criminal went looking for an almost identical vehicle, found mine, copied the number plate, then ordered some replacement plates from a ‘no questions asked’ supplier online, replaced them and when the job was done, they had a priceless asset that could never be traced.

The most likely hunting ground for cloned vehicles is used car sales websites, but I’m not selling my car, which means it’s been spotted while I’m driving it or – eerily – by someone wandering the streets and seeing it at my house.

The notifications started coming in on April 24 and haven’t stopped. Headaches cannot be taken lightly.

When we receive a tip, it is up to us to prove our innocence. We spent every evening for a week downloading and examining the images taken by traffic cameras, trying to detect the differences between the two vehicles.

We then have to take photos of our own vehicle, upload the images, and fill out tons of forms, some on paper, some online, before sending it to the authorities.

In some images the differences are clearly visible: Our car has a sunroof, the other does not, and we also have different wheel trims.

But the footage taken in the Blackwall Tunnel (just a blurry image in half-light) is almost impossible to prove.

Sarah explains how in countries such as France, number plates are treated like passports and can only be purchased in one or two tightly controlled shops (stock photo)

Another way to prove your innocence is through evidence of an ‘impossible journey’; For example, if the photograph of the cloned car was taken in Edinburgh at 10am and I can prove that my car was in London at 11am.

But so far our perpetrator appears to have confined his nefarious activities to the M25, with our car barely moving from Monday to Friday (and apparently not counting the ringtone footage showing the car sitting there).

A police camera photo showed the lower half of the driver’s face – bull-necked, bouncer-looking, elbow pointing out the window – but the fact that he doesn’t look like Phil Mitchell in EastEnders is no indication.

So far, one of our appeals has been accepted, but penalties are coming faster than they are issued. Stressful. Luckily, we’re pretty computer literate, but what if we weren’t?

Although it may not seem like a very serious crime at first glance (a victimless inconvenience for a privileged few), its consequences are chilling.

These cars are used in drug dealing, robberies and at least one murder.

In October 2022, a 21-year-old man named Kyron Lee was deliberately knocked down by a gang in a stolen car while cycling in Slough.

He was later attacked by four men armed with machetes and knives in a “planned execution” after becoming involved in a “tit-for-tat” affair with a local gang. The car that mowed him down used cloned license plates.

When the car was found abandoned, police discovered other cloned license plates were hidden in the trunk.

Five people were later convicted of Kyron’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Police found the supplier of the license plates thanks to phone contacts of one of the killers.

Mohammed Waqas Akhtar, 30, owner of Perfect Plates Online Ltd, later admitted four offenses under the Vehicle Offenses Act and was fined a total of £5,500.

You’re being quite lenient when you consider what Detective Constable James Heath of Thames Valley Police’s Serious Crime Unit said at the time: ‘It is clear that Akhtar’s activities were intended to conceal the identity of those who killed Kyron.

‘The results of the business activity are clearly visible.’

Number plate cloning has become such a blight on the country that it has now become the focus of West Bromwich Labor MP Sarah Coombes, whose Vehicle Registration Offenses (Review) Bill has passed through Parliament.

‘Your number plate may look like an ordinary piece of plastic but it is absolutely an integral part of the road safety system,’ he says.

Car cloning involves criminals stealing or copying the license plates of another car

‘Dodgy license plate dealers are a public scandal waiting to happen. [Many of] ‘These businesses are actually the front line of money laundering and crime.’

It calls for fines of up to £1,000 and a six-point penalty for drivers caught with cloned number plates: currently the penalty is £100, similar to a parking fine.

Sarah was alerted to the problem when voters complained about vehicles being driven around public housing as if they were at a car rally.

But he was dismayed to learn that it was nearly impossible to track the cars because the vast majority of them used cloned license plates.

What’s more, plates are so easily obtained that they can be discarded and replaced in a fixed, untraceable cycle, depending on regulation in the UK.

Sarah explains how in countries such as France, number plates are treated like passports and can only be purchased from one or two tightly controlled outlets. There are more than 43,000 DVLA registered companies in this country.

‘That’s four times the number of petrol stations,’ says Sarah.

You won’t believe what this evil killer did now

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Although reputable companies such as Halfords require customers to produce documents such as logbooks and driving licences, many do not do this. The responsibility for regulating exits is with the DVLA, but of course they can’t keep up.

Last year, Amazon banned the sale of car number plates on its platform after seven companies were found to be selling plates for £40 without an ID check.

A DVLA spokesman said: ‘We understand how distressing vehicle crime can be. Any driver who believes their license plate has been copied should report it to the police and contact the issuing authority by providing evidence that the vehicle in question does not belong to them. ‘We are working with the police, Trading Standards and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to improve the identification of cloned number plates.’

But what should I do? The obvious solution is to change my license plate. Although this can be done online (for an £80 fee, naturally), it requires your logbook to be sent in and can take up to six weeks.

This logbook is effective in appealing many sentences, so without it I won’t be able to defend myself for more than a month or more.

I may have to defend myself in the magistrate’s court. If I fail to do this, I could lose my license and face thousands of pounds in unpaid fines to my name.

Or I can sit and hope that the driver will be stopped by the police soon. The crime has been reported, hopefully the car will be caught on camera. The Blackwall Tunnel might be a good place to start.

Police have now flagged the records, but a new set of difficulties could be about to begin, as it did for secondary school teacher trainer Jo Leach, 52, from Torquay. He describes how he was repeatedly pulled over by police last year after the second-hand car he had just bought turned out to have a cloned cousin.

‘The first time I noticed something was wrong was at a petrol station, I wasn’t allowed to pay for fuel at the kiosk; I had to put my credit card in the machine next to the pump before filling up with fuel.

‘I actually got Tannoyed in the front court. This usually only happens when someone leaves without paying.

‘I am a priest’s wife. It was truly embarrassing!’ says Jo. Following this embarrassing experience, Jo reported potential cloning and obtained a crime reference number.

‘Then the police kept pulling me over. I started keeping the crime number in the glove compartment.

‘I was constantly looking at my mirror, waiting for a blue light. It was absolutely awful; You actually start to feel guilty.’

The events stopped after a few months, indicating that the vehicle was seized and the license plate was confiscated, or the thief had switched to new license plates. That’s what we hope for.

What about in the future? What can we do to avoid being targeted again?

I was saddened to read that the VW Golf, an inconspicuous, not too ostentatious family car, is a very popular choice for thieves.

Practical advice seems to be limited to not posting pictures of your car and its license plate online, but I didn’t do that.

Sarah has some stern warnings: ‘A senior police officer once told me he could give me crime prevention advice on a range of topics, from burglar alarms in general to keeping your mobile phone out of sight when walking alone.

‘But there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself from having your license plate copied. Nothing.’