Just as the sun rises over the Throgs Neck Bridge in the Bronx, law enforcement officers from eight different city and state agencies move into action, cracking down on “ghost cars.”

“Make it clear and concise, quick, alert the officers of what’s coming, and we will make the stop,” Deputy Chief Thomas Alps advised officers prior to deploying them to their operation posts. He helped assemble the joint task force and leads the charge for its 35th operation.

What You Need To Know

  • Since March, law enforcement officers from eight different city and state agencies have launched 35 operations to crack down on "ghost cars"

  • They flag fraudulent, missing or altered license plates, but also call out any kind of violation, such as excessive window tint or a missing registration

  • The task force has made more than 430 arrests, seized more than 1,900 vehicles and written roughly 17,000 summonses

“It is a vehicle that we can’t identify for whatever reason,” Alps said. “It can be intentional; it can be for the purpose of evading tolls; it can be for the purpose of criminality; it can be both, so it’s a crime-fighting strategy, as well as a traffic safety issue.”

Since March, the task force has made more than 430 arrests, seized more than 1,900 vehicles and written roughly 17,000 summonses. Police use a combination of license plate reader cameras and the trained eyes of officers who know what to look for.

They flag fraudulent, missing or altered license plates, but also call out any kind of violation, such as excessive window tint or a missing registration.

During Wednesday's operation, officers were told to be on alert for orange Florida transport plates — a fake plate, often with the same number and letter combination — that authorities are seeing more of recently.

“These are out there everywhere. You know you can drive across one of the bridges now and have a pretty good chance of seeing one,” Inspector Anthony Trumantana, of the MTA’s Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, explained.

License plate readers, known as LPRs, can also determine if a plate is stolen or was used in a crime, and can help track chronic toll evaders.

Chief of Department Charles Chavez, with the MTA’s Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, said that since the task force began these operations, they have seen a 10% decrease in the number of drivers using different tactics to evade detection.

“Our taxpayers are out there paying the tolls, paying their fares, and some people are not paying their fair share, so we have to ensure that that happens, because that’s the fair thing to do as New Yorkers,” Chavez said.

By the end of the operation, which ran over eight hours, 10 arrests were made, more than 500 summonses were written and nearly 50 vehicles were seized. The amount of toll and tax warrants from the vehicles stopped totaled more than $38,000.