Federal Traffic Enforcement and Investigation Department deputy director Asst Comm Ruslan Khalid said police have taken possession of 20 ANPR units purchased from the United States this month.
He said police have already started using the devices in operations carried out nationwide, especially during traffic operations.
The system uses a high-definition camera that captures and reads number plates to detect blacklisted vehicles or even vehicles in the crime hotlist, he added.
It can also detect vehicles with summonses or even arrest warrants on them.
ACP Ruslan said that when the devices were used in a traffic operation in Johor recently, 2,000 traffic offenders as well as those with outstanding summonses were detected.
“A total of 87 crime cases which involved mostly stolen vehicles were detected by traffic police using the ANPR,” he said during a joint operation called Ops Terancang at the Sungai Besi toll early yesterday.
Ops Terancang was conducted in four different zones on major highways in the country.
The four zones – central, northern, southern and eastern – included Sungai Besi in Kuala Lumpur, Gurun in Kedah, Gunung Semanggol in Perak, Bukit Gambir in Johor and the Temerloh R&R in Pahang.
ACP Ruslan also said the recently implemented Mobile Compound Online Payment System (MCOPS) would enable officers to issue summonses by merely keying in an offender’s details.
The device, similar to a mini printer, has to be synced with smartphones on which the mobile app has been downloaded.
Upon issuance, the summonses will be uploaded to the police system and the police officer can print out a copy on the spot, saving time.
The system is also linked to the Road Transport Department.
In the two-hour operation yesterday, a total of 3,361 summonses were issued to traffic offenders.
ACP Ruslan said that 46 people who tested positive for drugs were also arrested during the operation, with another 29 foreigners detained for failing to produce valid documents.
He said that three million summons notices have been issued this year to traffic offenders while 833,000 warning letters have been sent for failing to respond.
File pic of stolen cars.
In a separate development, Bernama reported that vehicle theft syndicates in Malaysia are not limiting their so-called “business” just to the closest neighbouring country, Thailand, but are believed to have expanded even to Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
A source who disclosed the syndicates’ modus operandi said, chances would be very slim to find back the stolen vehicles if they had reached those Indochina countries.
He believed that the vehicle theft syndicates in these countries had a strong networking among them which complicated the authorities’ effort in handling the cross border crime.
“It is believed, that the cars stolen in Malaysia will be transported via sea by container ship from Singapore.
“Then, it will stop at its first destination, Thailand. It is also believed that Laem Chabang Port, in Thailand is their main destination (to unload the stolen vehicles),” he told Bernama, recently.
Depending on the situation, the source said, parts of the stolen vehicles in the container would be unloaded in Thailand, and the remaining would continue their journey to the Indochina countries.
If the cars were not sold in Thailand, there were also possibilities of the unloaded stolen vehicles being smuggled into its neighbouring countries by land.
Thailand shares land border with three Indochina countries, namely Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, possibly as the final destinations for the stolen vehicles, he said.
“If it reached those countries, the chances to find them back are as good as nothing,” he said, adding that information on the stolen vehicles in the three Indochina countries would also be hard to obtain.
According to him, one of the latest and popular trends to sell or “dispose” of stolen Malaysian vehicles in Thailand was through online websites.
Early this month, Thai police handed over 22 stolen Malaysian vehicles worth RM2.2mil found in that country to the Malaysian police.
