Upon complaints from the General Directorate of Traffic in the Kurdistan Region, courts have issued arrest warrants for nearly 2,000 people who have used license plates in the Kurdistan Region with 366 of them remaining at large.
"Over the past two years, we have recorded 1,758 cases of fraudulent license plates and we filed lawsuit against all of the fraudsters," Brig. Ali Burhan, the head of the Follow-Up Department at the Erbil Traffic Directorate, told Rudaw on Monday.
He detailed that 1,392 people have already been tried — 992 of whom were jailed, 200 fined — but 366 still remain at large.
Brig Gen. Sirwan Ali, the head of the Legal Department at the Erbil Traffic Directorate, told Rudaw they have recently started using technology at border crossings which has made it nearly "impossible" for any vehicle using fake plates to enter because "every vehicle has to go through an IT (information technology) database check."
The Kurdistan Region shares border crossings with the federal government of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and one with conflict-ridden northeast Syria.
Ali added: "Any vehicle imported into the Kurdistan Region is subject to this inspection. The new system applied at our departments is directly connected to the crossings. Every vehicle should be registered and get plated. While registering, we send every vehicle to our IT Department to make sure the documents match those issued for the car at the crossings upon entry into the Kurdistan Region."
The traffic official detailed that buyers and sellers sometimes become entangled in fraudulent vehicle transactions without their knowledge.
"Sometimes, for example, a person brings many vehicles and sells them without the buyers knowing that the car's documents were originally fake," he added.
The Traffic Directorate takes prudent legal measures against those who have made fake plates, he added. "From the traffic department, we lodge complaints against the cheaters. On trial days, our legal representatives attend to submit documents to the judge. Any decision the court makes, we will commit to."
Fazil Haji, spokesperson of Erbil Traffic, said those who use counterfeit car plates do so to "evade speed cameras and traffic rules and regulations."
According to Ali, the court system is too lenient on traffic-related infringements of the law.
"The court makes things worse for us. Some people who have conducted large-scale operations making fake plates have been pardoned. We take the strictest possible measures against them, but then the court releases them as part of their public amnesties," he said.
The Interior Ministry has also taken measures to clamp down on the use and production of counterfeit plates – first taking aim at the use of temporary vehicle plates.
Sami Jalal, an official from the ministry, said an electronic identification system will soon be implemented to eliminate temporary plate use.
Currently, any vehicle entering the Kurdistan Region should use a temporary plate, valid for two months from the day it is sold. After the two month period, the vehicle should be permanently plated and issued with an annual registration ID. The system aims to shrink this to a matter of days.
"We discussed it [the project] with the traffic department last week in order to establish an electronic system at crossings which directly connects the Interior Ministry with the traffic departments,” Jalal said. "This new system will remove the system of using temporary car plates [for two months]. Any vehicle being imported should be registered in the name the company or an individual within five to seven days."
Reporting by Shkar Ahmed and Zhelwan. Z. Wali
