NYC ghost cars are vehicles driving around New York City with license plates that have been faked, forged, altered, covered, or swapped from another car, all so cameras and toll readers cannot identify the driver. They cost the city and the MTA tens of millions of dollars a year in unpaid tolls and fines, they show up disproportionately in serious crashes, and they are now the target of a sustained crackdown involving state and city agencies, federal prosecutors, and new legislation.
What Counts as a Ghost Car
The label covers several tricks. Some drivers physically doctor a real plate with tape or paint, turning an F into an E or a 3 into an 8. Others slap on a tinted plastic cover or spray a reflective coating that blinds the camera flash. A large share of the problem is outright fraud: counterfeit paper tags made to look like out-of-state dealer temps, plates that belong to a different vehicle, or plates that were never issued by any DMV at all.1MTA. MTA and Law Enforcement Partners Celebrate 100th Ghost Plate Enforcement Operation
Out-of-state paper tags are a particular headache. A two-month NYC Council investigation completed in 2025 reviewed more than 3,500 ticketed vehicles and found 768 with out-of-state plates. Nearly one in five of those out-of-state plates had no valid link to the vehicle’s actual owner.2amNY. NYC Fake Out-of-State License Plates
Why the City Cares
The money is significant. The Manhattan Borough President’s office estimates unreadable plates cost New York City up to $200 million a year in lost fines, tolls, and fees.3ABC7 New York. Ghost Plates Law: New NY State Legislation Banning Sale of Unreadable Obscure Plates The MTA alone has been losing an average of $42 million a year in toll revenue to ghost plates over the past seven years.4MTA. Policy Brief: Urgent Need for Toll Enforcement and Albany’s Role More than 5 percent of the vehicles passing through the city’s speed cameras, red-light cameras, and toll gantries each month generate an unreadable plate image, and NYC Department of Transportation cameras alone capture over 100,000 unreadable images a month.5Manhattan Borough President. Ghost Car Governance
Safety is the bigger issue. Because cameras cannot identify these cars, the drivers can speed through school zones, run red lights, flee crashes, and commit violent crimes without being traced. The NYC Council’s investigation found that vehicles with mismatched or untraceable plates racked up 49 percent more school-zone speeding violations and 74 percent more fire hydrant violations than properly plated vehicles. They averaged 7.76 unpaid violations over a two-year period, compared with 2.94 for legitimately plated cars, and they paid only 16 percent of the fines they incurred, versus 63 percent for cars with valid registrations.6NYC Council. Plate and Switch Report NYC DOT has said crash data show ghost vehicles are “far more likely to be involved in deadly collisions” than properly plated ones.7NYC DOT. Traffic Deaths Reach All-Time Low
Federal prosecutors have connected fraudulent tags to at least 1,200 incidents in New York, including six homicides.8Streetsblog NYC. Feds Charge Fraud Temp Tag Dealers ID’d in Streetsblog’s Ghost Plate Series Enforcement sweeps have routinely uncovered firearms, drugs, fake IDs, and stashes of extra plates inside seized ghost cars. In one overnight operation in East New York, the NYC Sheriff’s Office seized 51 cars and found some carrying 10 to 20 different license plates apiece.9ABC7 New York. Ghost Cars: New York City Sheriff Fake License Plates Unregistered Car
Where the Fake Plates Come From
A big share of the fraudulent plates on New York City streets started life as temporary dealer tags out of Georgia and New Jersey. A joint investigation by Streetsblog and the New Jersey Monitor, published in 2023, described licensed used-car dealerships in those states printing enormous volumes of temp tags without conducting real sales, sometimes operating out of warehouse suites with no visible inventory. F&J Auto Mall in Bridgeton, New Jersey issued 36,000 temporary tags in 2021 before being shut down with a $500 fine. Herrera Auto Group, a Georgia dealership run by a Yonkers resident, issued over 20,000 tags in roughly six months. A single Bridgeton facility housed hundreds of dealers that together produced 137,000 tags in 2021, a 500 percent jump from 2019. On the street, the tags sell for $50 to $250 each.10New Jersey Monitor. Ghost Tags: Inside New York City’s Black Market for Temporary License Plates
In May 2026, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York unsealed indictments against 11 fraudulent dealers charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and access device fraud. Prosecutors alleged the defendants created sham dealerships to generate more than 100,000 phony plates. The wire fraud counts alone carry a maximum sentence of 20 years.11Democrat and Chronicle. Fake Dealership Temp Tag Fraud Case
New Jersey has moved on its own end of the pipeline. Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation in January 2024 raising penalties for selling or driving with fraudulent temp tags, and the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission rolled out redesigned tags with new security features, requiring dealers to switch by November 1, 2024.12Streetsblog NYC. New Jersey Rolls Out New Temporary License Plates to Fight Black Market Exposed by Streetsblog
The Crackdown
The city and state response runs on parallel tracks.
The Interagency Task Force
The largest effort launched on March 11, 2024, when Governor Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, and MTA Chair Janno Lieber announced a 16-agency task force. It pulls together the MTA Bridges and Tunnels Authority, the NYPD, the New York State Police, the Port Authority Police, the NYC Sheriff’s Office, the State DMV, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the U.S. Park Police, and suburban police departments in Nassau, Westchester, and Suffolk. Operations concentrate on bridge and tunnel approaches, including the Throgs Neck, the Bronx Whitestone, the Queens Midtown Tunnel, the Willis Avenue Bridge, and the RFK Bridge, along with approaches to the congestion pricing zone.1MTA. MTA and Law Enforcement Partners Celebrate 100th Ghost Plate Enforcement Operation
By February 2026, the task force had run 122 operations, towed 6,774 vehicles, made 1,644 arrests, and identified $60.8 million in unpaid tolls and fees on the seized cars.4MTA. Policy Brief: Urgent Need for Toll Enforcement and Albany’s Role
The DSNY-NYPD “Ghostbusters” Team
In September 2024, Mayor Adams launched a separate operation pairing 15 NYPD officers with the Department of Sanitation to seize ghost cars while they’re parked, filling the gap left by the MTA-led task force, which focuses on vehicles in motion. The DSNY/NYPD team works around the clock. In its first five nights it seized 295 ghost cars, and within 12 weeks it had removed 5,119.13NYC Mayor’s Office. Ghostbusters: Mayor Adams Launches New DSNY-NYPD Ghost Car Task Force14NYC Mayor’s Office. Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul: Removal of 73,000 Ghost Cars and Illegal Motorized Vehicles
If your car is towed as a suspected ghost vehicle, you have seven days to bring valid registration and proof of insurance to the vendor lot. After that, the vehicle sits on a 30-day hold before going to auction. Unsold vehicles are destroyed by DSNY. About 60 percent of the ghost cars seized by the Sheriff’s Office are never claimed and end up at auction.15QNS. Mayor Adams Announces Joint NYPD and DSNY Ghostbusters Task Force16NYC NYPD. NYPD and the NYC Sheriff’s Office Crack Down on Ghost Cars
Statewide Sweeps
The state also runs periodic enforcement blitzes under the name Operation Plate Check. The 2025 edition produced 3,308 license plate violation tickets, a 250 percent increase over 945 the year before, along with 83 suspended-registration tickets and 14 recovered stolen vehicles.17Governor of New York. Governor Hochul Announces Targeted Enforcement Crack Down on Ghost Cars Officers at these operations use handheld license plate scanners along with fixed and mobile plate reader trailers stationed at bridge and tunnel approaches, which check passing plates against a database of registrations suspended by the DMV.1MTA. MTA and Law Enforcement Partners Celebrate 100th Ghost Plate Enforcement Operation
By December 2024, city officials said more than 73,000 ghost cars and illegal motorized vehicles, a count that includes unregistered scooters and ATVs, had been removed from New York City streets since the start of the Adams administration.14NYC Mayor’s Office. Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul: Removal of 73,000 Ghost Cars and Illegal Motorized Vehicles
The Laws Changing the Rules
Several measures are already in force, and more are pending.
- A state law that took effect September 1, 2024 bans the sale of products designed to obscure or block license plates, including tinted covers and reflective sprays that were widely marketed on Craigslist and TikTok.3ABC7 New York. Ghost Plates Law: New NY State Legislation Banning Sale of Unreadable Obscure Plates
- The FY 2025 state budget raised fines and penalties for driving with altered plates and blocked DMV registration transactions for vehicles with registrations suspended over unpaid tolls.18Governor of New York. Governor Hochul Marks One Year of Largest City and State Interagency Task Force to Remove Ghost Cars
- Senate Bill S.8506, introduced by Senator George Borrello in September 2025, would make a first counterfeit plate offense a Class E felony rather than a misdemeanor, with escalating penalties for repeat offenses. As of early 2026 it remained in the Senate Transportation Committee without a vote.19New York State Senate. Senate Bill S8506
- Pending City Council bills would raise the maximum penalty for an obscured or defaced plate to $1,000, ban the sale of fake out-of-state plates within the city, and could shift some traffic enforcement duties from the NYPD to DOT.20Gothamist. NYPD Is Ticketing More Ghost Cars, but Congestion Pricing Could Drive a Surge in New Toll Dodgers
There is still a gap. Local Law 22 of 2022 bans materials that cover or deface plates, but the NYC Council’s investigation concluded it does not clearly block the sale of fraudulent physical plates themselves, whether real, replica, or novelty. Fake plates remain openly available on Craigslist, OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, Etsy, Amazon, and Instagram.6NYC Council. Plate and Switch Report
What’s Ahead
Congestion pricing, which began charging vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th Street in January 2025, relies entirely on cameras reading plates, and it has created a fresh incentive to hide them. Senator Borrello has cited a “noticeable jump” in ghost plates after the toll launched.21New York State Senate. Senator George Borrello Introduces Legislation Transit consultant Sam Schwartz has estimated that as many as one in five drivers could obscure their plates to dodge the toll, and about 6 percent of bridge and tunnel drivers are already uncollectible by MTA cameras. Because the program is legally required to generate $1 billion a year, lost revenue from ghost plates could push toll rates higher for the drivers who do pay.20Gothamist. NYPD Is Ticketing More Ghost Cars, but Congestion Pricing Could Drive a Surge in New Toll Dodgers
The MTA’s own early 2026 policy brief was candid about the scoreboard. Unbillable crossings dipped slightly in 2025, but ghost plate losses have not significantly declined despite the enforcement surge, and the agency continues to lose tens of millions in toll revenue each year.4MTA. Policy Brief: Urgent Need for Toll Enforcement and Albany’s Role Task force operations continue at a pace of roughly twice a week with no announced end date.