If you leave your car in the yard, you can become a target for intruders: vindictive neighbors, hooligans, extortionists. A nuisance that is common these days is the removal of license plates. This can happen to every car enthusiast. What to do if a state sign was stolen and you left a mobile phone number to call? Calling a scammer is not the best solution. In such a situation, it is necessary to clearly understand the meaning of what happened: who did it and why, and what the villain wants from you. To save time and nerves, it is necessary to analyze the circumstances of a particular theft.
Art. 325.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for the theft of license plates was put into effect in August 2014. Criminals who break the law alone face up to 1 year in prison, and as part of a group – up to 4 years. Since the criminal law was supplemented with a new article, drivers who cannot quickly restore their license plates have become more protected. The law also protected foreigners, drivers of transit trucks and road travelers.
Actions in case of theft of license plates from a car
Immediately stop using the car, drive without registration. numbers are prohibited in Russia.
Try to determine what exactly happened: the loss of the sign or its theft. Inspect the places where signs are installed on the car, the parking lot and the road to it. Perhaps the number was poorly secured, you lost it by jumping on a bump or hole, catching on a branch or other inconspicuous obstacle. It is possible that you will find a sign near the car, in a puddle, in the mud or in the bushes, and you are quite capable of discovering the loss on your own or with friends and putting it back in its rightful place.
If the plate is not found, you should file a report with your local police department regarding the theft of your vehicle's license plates. In the future, this will protect you from being held accountable for possible crimes using your plate. The inspector will initiate a case regarding the theft of state vehicle registration marks. This is a formality, since there is no active search for these cases, but the main thing for you is to obtain an official document from law enforcement agencies about the theft.
Contacting the traffic police department
After about ten days, necessary to verify the circumstances of the case, you will be given a certificate of theft of a car license plate, allowing you to order a duplicate from a specialized organization or register with the traffic police to re-register the car and receive other signs. The latter option is more labor-intensive and time-consuming, but it can save you from unnecessary explanations with law enforcement agencies in the future.
Once you receive your new government decals, contact your insurance company to make changes to the database.
Qualifying features
Theft is a complex crime due to the fact that criminal practice has many options for its commission.
Hence, in article three hundred and twenty-five of the Criminal Code, qualifying criteria appeared that lead to an increase in punishment for the committed act.
This is done because the crime committed has aggravating features .
Let's get to know them better.
One of the most common qualifying features in crimes is theft, which was committed not by one person, but by a whole group of people.
Another aggravating feature is the theft of a license plate from a premises - a storage room or a garage.
If the theft of the license plate caused damage, for example, damage to a car or other property, the penalty will also be increased.
All these qualifying signs for the theft of state registration plates are contained in the second and third parts of the article we are considering.
Is it possible to drive without license plates?
You cannot be fined for losing your license plate; this is not provided for by law.
According to clause 1, part 3, art. 8 283-FZ dated 08/03/2018, the operation of cars without registration marks in Russia is prohibited. An exception is the ten-day period after purchasing a new car, importing or acquiring rights to a vehicle that was not previously registered in the Russian Federation.
Punishment for such an offense ranges from a fine of five thousand to deprivation of rights for a period of one to three months. The sanction for the lack of one number is similar to that provided for the loss of two.
Number return options
If the numbers are stolen, the injured party has two options to legally resolve this issue.
Making a duplicate
If the license plates are stolen, the car owner must take measures to restore them. You can return your previous registration numbers by restoring them and obtaining a duplicate. There are a sufficient number of private companies operating successfully on the territory of the Russian Federation, which, for little money in the range of 2000 - 3000 rubles, will produce a new set of registration numbers on their own.
Before contacting the order executor, you must make sure that he has valid accreditation. Both individual entrepreneurs and legal entities can perform such work. To put a duplicate number into operation, the customer will be asked to provide:
- Driver's license. As an alternative, a passport of a Russian citizen may be presented.
- Original certificate confirming the registration of the vehicle.
The process of producing new numbers will take no more than an hour. This procedure complies with current laws, which state that a new registration of a car after the loss of registration plates is not required.
This method is used by motorists who do not want to lose the registration number they have received. This method of solving the problem under consideration carries one danger. If license plates removed from a vehicle are indicated in any criminal case, the citizen on whom they are registered may be held liable.
If there is the slightest suspicion that the numbers may be used in criminal schemes, it is recommended to abandon this option and re-register.
New car registration
In this case, you will have to obtain completely new registration numbers. To do this, you need to contact the nearest traffic police department and act in the following order:
- Fill out and submit a statement about the theft of car registration numbers.
- Pay a state fee, the amount of which is approximately equal to the cost of producing duplicate license plates.
- Submit another application requesting a new registration of the car. The document must indicate the actual reason for the application: the loss of license plates under unclear circumstances. It is recommended to indicate exactly this wording. If the statement contains the word theft, the license plates may not be issued until the investigation is completed.
Completed applications must be accompanied by a whole package of documents, which includes:
Have a question for a lawyer? Ask now, call and get a free consultation from leading lawyers in your city. We will answer your questions quickly and try to help with your specific case.
Telephone in Moscow and the Moscow region: +7
Phone in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region: +7
Free hotline throughout Russia: 8 (800) 301-39-20
- Identification document of the applicant.
- Driver's licenses.
- Valid OSAGO certificate.
- A document confirming the fact of registration of the vehicle.
- PTS.
- If the attackers removed only one number plate from the car, you must attach the remaining number to the documents.
After reviewing the applications, attached documents and following certain legislative procedures, the citizen will be issued new numbers and a certificate.
Restoring a number after theft
They restore the old sign, or rather, get a duplicate of it, in the event of the theft of only one license plate from the car. In an authorized company (a list of such organizations can be found at the nearest registration office or on the traffic police portal) this will cost 1,500-2,000 rubles and will take about half an hour.
If both license plates are stolen from you, you need to re-register the car and obtain new plates from the traffic police. You will have to pay a state fee of 2,850 rubles. There is no need to undergo a technical inspection.
Search for stolen numbers
Since in most cases the thief attacks several cars at once, he does not have the opportunity to take a lot of HP with him. According to law enforcement statistics, signs are often hidden in the nearest perimeter.
Therefore, you should definitely check the availability of your rooms within a radius of 150-250 meters.
It is worth inspecting such places as: nearby bushes, pipes, garbage cans, all kinds of gaps and crevices, stairwells. In winter, the search becomes more difficult due to the presence of snowdrifts, but there are still chances of success.
There is a high probability that your numbers are located in these places, so you can attract additional people to search as quickly as possible.
Why are license plates stolen from cars?
It is impossible to say for sure why license plates are stolen from cars. The purpose of stealing a car license plate may be extortion. In this case, the thief addresses a note to the owner. In it, he indicates a telephone number for communication, sometimes a method of transferring money and the amount of payment. Typically, the ransom amount is slightly less than the cost of restoring the number and ranges from 1,500 to 5,000 rubles. The calculation is that the owner of the car will not want to deal with the labor-intensive procedure of restoring lost state license plates, but will prefer to pay the scammer and immediately get back the treasured license plate.
Request for ransom for a stolen license plate
It is not uncommon for criminals to steal signs in order to subsequently commit another crime in a car with false license plates. If you did not report the theft to the authorities in a timely manner, in the future you will have to explain to investigators what the car with your registration marks did at the scene of a more serious crime.
Fraudsters can steal license plates to implement schemes to evade fines imposed automatically by traffic police and MADI cameras, non-payment of parking, gasoline at gas stations, or travel on highways with a barrier-free toll system.
In this case, all these fines and bills will come to your name. And you will have to prove every time that you had nothing to do with these incidents, and this is a rather long and labor-intensive process.
Sometimes the theft of license plates from a car is committed out of hooliganism or to annoy the car owner who doesn’t like it.
What to do if license plates are stolen from a car in another country?
In another country, you need to be especially careful when leaving your car on the street, even for a short time. Foreign numbers are the most desirable prey for scammers. They take advantage of the vulnerability of visitors and demand large sums of money for the return of rooms. Restoring registration plates abroad is more problematic than in your home country. This is what the attackers are counting on, inflating the ransom amount.
But this does not mean that you need to give money and indulge the thieves’ demands. So you can be left without finances and without numbers. The first actions in this situation are standard - go to the police and write a report of theft. There, the car owner will receive a certificate with which to go to the embassy or consulate. Further, this issue will be resolved by employees of the diplomatic organization.
IMPORTANT
Before traveling to another country by car, you should be especially careful about the security of your license plates. You can use custom screws that require a special screwdriver, or install other security features. You should not leave your car for a long time - in Ukraine and Belarus this type of fraud is as widespread as in Russia.
If they demand a ransom for the numbers
Try looking for signs near the car. According to the law, the punishment for stealing license plates from a car is quite serious. Knowing this, thieves, in order not to get caught red-handed, usually do not take the removed signs with them, but hide them in a secluded place nearby, for example, behind trees, bushes, in the sand, in a pile of earth, under the stairs. If the owner transfers money to the criminals, they tell him this place.
If the numbers are not found, it is easier to restore them officially, through the police and traffic police. You should not feed criminals by paying a ransom: in their eyes this will look like weakness and will serve as a reason to repeat illegal actions against you in the future. In addition, if you do not immediately report the incident, the signs may be used with criminal intent, which promises additional problems.
Concept
Everyone knows what theft is.
And if you don’t know the literal concept of this crime , then you probably have an idea of how this action is performed.
Unfortunately, the crime of theft is very common, and there are hundreds of types of theft.
The theft of license plates is one of the types of theft.
In general, the Criminal Code contains an article called “wrongful taking of a state registration plate,” which summarizes all types of theft of license plates under one concept.
If you need to familiarize yourself with the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the theft of automobile license plates. numbers from the car, open the criminal code to article three hundred and twenty-five.
Stealing is an action .
This crime simply cannot be committed through inaction.
Also, theft is one of the types of theft, along with such types as robbery, robbery , and so on.
The advantage and main difference between theft and other types of crimes involving the appropriation of someone else's property is the method of committing this crime.
Mostly, it is done secretly.
That is, the criminal must be sure that no one sees the actions he performs during the theft.
If we transfer this definition of theft to the situation we are interested in with the theft of car license plates, then this is a kind of act aimed at assigning someone else’s license plates, committed secretly.
Read the full article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Theft.
How to secure your car in the future
If possible, try to leave your car under supervision in paid or closed familiar crowded parking lots with sufficient lighting and video surveillance. This is the easiest and most reliable way to protect your car from attacks by thieves.
Video surveillance in the parking lot
A sensitive car alarm will help stop attempts to steal license plates from your car. An anti-vandal device, a special number frame, and secret fastening of signs can also prevent theft. But if the attackers have serious intentions and enough time, any of these devices will be neutralized or simply broken.
How to prevent theft?
Even if you are completely sure that the situation in your yard is calm and thieves will not covet your numbers, you should still understand that there is a chance of this happening.
Therefore, if you don’t want to say the sad: “My numbers were stolen!”, you need to take at least a little preventive measures to insure against unpleasant incidents.
There are several simple methods and rules, following which you can not worry about theft of license plates:
- The most common way of protection is to make several additional fastenings. To do this, you need to drill several holes and secure your numbers properly with additional bolts.
- Another option is to secure the plates with numbers using bolts with a non-standard head that a regular screwdriver cannot take, but here you will have to spend time searching for them.
- You can also use a special steel anti-vandal frame that securely holds the number. It is attached directly to the bumper and the number is secured with a reliable structure that covers the perimeter. The cost of the product varies from 1000 to 5000 rubles.
- Don't forget about the magical alarm effect. It costs from 1000 to 2500 rubles. Its sensors are installed in a number frame and connected to a common alarm system. The siren is activated instantly when you touch the bumper. This option is really necessary for owners of luxury car brands and correspondingly priced rooms.
- And it goes without saying that you need to leave your car only in safe, bright, crowded places. If it is possible to park the vehicle under the camera or use paid parking, then it is best to do so.
Responsibility for theft of license plates from a car
For the theft of a car license plate in the Russian Federation, not only Article 19.37 of the Code of Administrative Offenses is provided, but also criminal punishment under Article 325.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
If the act does not reveal signs of a criminal offense, administrative arrest is applied for up to 15 days.
If the thief’s actions are seen as motivated by self-interest (such as extortion of a ransom) or preparation for committing a serious crime, criminal liability is applied under Article 325.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. A penalty is imposed in the form of a fine of up to a maximum of 200,000 rubles or in the amount of the full income of the convicted person for a period of up to twelve months, forced labor for up to 360 hours (up to 45 work days), corrective labor for up to twelve months, or imprisonment for this period. term.
Responsibility for theft of license plates
If the theft was carried out by conspiracy of several persons or a group, the punishment is toughened. Thieves will be punished with a fine of up to 300,000 rubles. or the amount of the criminal’s income for up to 24 months, compulsory work for up to 480 hours (up to 60 work days), correctional work for up to 24 months, or even a prison term of up to four years.
As we can see, the law takes this crime very seriously. Criminals can receive a real sentence of up to four years.
Possible actions of the attacker and the victim
After the theft of numbers, an attacker who committed a crime for personal gain will have two possible scenarios:
- Leave a note for the car owner. In it, the criminal indicates a phone number to call to return the registration plates.
- Find out the phone number of the car owner yourself and call him with ransom demands.
If numbers are stolen, the likelihood of their return is extremely low, even if all the criminal’s demands are met. The best solution in such a situation would be to seek help from law enforcement agencies. As evidence, you can provide a note left by the attacker, the phone number from which the criminal called. If it is possible to record a telephone conversation in which the attacker demands a ransom, this will be the best evidence.
