(NewsNation) — The chief of a small Texas town says border authorities are now finding stolen plates from his area being used in smuggling situations, including those taken from city council members.
The license plates come from Sabinal, Texas, and have been taken from local residents and city officials.
Human smugglers typically drive down to the southern border from Houston, Austin or Dallas or even out of state. So when law enforcement officials near the border see a vehicle with those plates, it can be a flag for them to run the license plate.
Local plates don’t raise the same concern because it isn’t the trend they are used to seeing, and often, those driving really are local residents and not smugglers who are trafficking immigrants who have entered the country illegally.
In the small town of Sabinal, several people have reported their license plates being stolen since April, with six cases of local vehicles that have had license plates stolen.
Police Chief Jesus “Chuy” Reyes said that might not be the full extent of the problem.
“We might still have vehicles here that people don’t know of,” Reyes told NewsNation. “They never check their license plates.”
The smugglers using the plates are relying on law enforcement turning a blind eye to the idea that officials and locals could be involved in human smuggling operations.
Reyes said he has alerted other law enforcement agencies about the trend so they can also be on the lookout.
He said thieves will look for generic vehicles like plain white trucks or SUVs, which are often used by city or government vehicles, and swap the plates out with one from a similar vehicle so that if police run it, it will almost match.
“They took on that was a city council member at the time — now he’s a mayor — and he got pulled over because the plates were reported stolen and found out those plates did not belong to him,” Reyes said. “They belonged to a different truck. The ones that are taken, they’re pretty similar to their vehicles. If it’s a white Ford, they’ll try to match it to a white Ford, similar year and model.”
Sabinal is nearly two hours from the border, with a major checkpoint roughly 30 miles away. Police in Sabinal say they are the last line of defense. If the smugglers get through, they’re gone, the drivers typically taking people to San Antonio, where they will likey end up moving from stash house to stash house, deeper into the country.