Sabinal Police Chief Jesus “Chuy” Reyes has outlined a new strategy human smugglers are using to avoid detection: using stolen license plates of similar vehicles.
The plates are often removed from residents’ cars that match vehicles used in smuggling efforts in the town of Sabinal, located in Uvalde County in South Texas, NewsNation reports. When a smuggler drives to the border from a major city such as Houston or Austin, locally swapped stolen license plates mitigate suspicions.
While multiple individuals from Sabinal have reported that their license plates were stolen, Chief Reyes alluded to the fact that the problem might be much bigger.
“We might still have vehicles here that people don’t know of,” he said. “They never check their license plates.”
