Obviously fake license plate busted by Bay Area cops

A driver was arrested in Benicia, Calif., on Friday morning after a police officer noticed her car had a very obviously forged license plate. What appears to be black duct tape holds the flimsy replica in place on the back of the car, a silver Kia Rio LX.  

The fake plate, which appears to be fashioned from a sheet of printer paper, has a plate number hand-drawn across it in thick black Sharpie. The digits on the right side of the plate are ever so slightly smaller than those on the left, an adjustment the artist likely had to make midway through the scam in order to squeeze in every last numeral. 

The plate is not only counterfeit, but its fake tags are expired. The top right corner of the penned plate, where the registration sticker would be, reads “JAN 2023,” also in Sharpie. Current tags would have a date in the future, like “JAN 2024.”

“We know we are not superheroes, but just FYI this is NOT a way to get one over on us,” wrote the Benicia Police Department in a Facebook post about the arrest.

After an officer spotted the fake plate around 1 a.m. Friday, they looked up the vehicle and discovered that it was reported stolen from Alameda. The officer then arrested the driver on two charges: felony possession of a stolen vehicle and misdemeanor possession of “unlawful paraphernalia,” which presumably refers to the fake plate.

According to Benicia police, the officer arrested the driver “without any incident” and took her to the Solano County Jail.