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Smugglers Stealing License Plates Off Government Vehicles Near Border

Smugglers are stealing license plates from official vehicles in South Texas and mounting them on cars and trucks used to smuggle humans and drugs into the U.S., according to reports.

Authorities in Sabinal, a city near the southern border in Uvalde County, are noticing an uptick in license plate theft likely tied to organized crime.

The Sabinal Police Department provided a collection of recent incident reports to NewsNation correspondent Ali Bradley.

“Sabinal PD in Uvalde County says human/drug smugglers are swiping license plates from vehicles that belong to city officials and local residents and putting them on their vehicles in order to get past law enforcement,” Bradley reported on Thursday.

“The criminals are targeting generic vehicles like white trucks and SUVs which are often city/government vehicles.”

At least three such thefts were recorded in June while another was reported on Monday.

Sabinal Police Chief Jesus “Chuy” Reyes told Bradley that Border Patrol recently busted a smuggling operation involving a vehicle bearing locally-stolen plates.

This article was originally published at InfoWars.com