The UK’s capital city has seen a huge increase in the incidence of car cloning, with a spike of almost 700 per cent in the crime.

The crime of cloning is whereby a car uses the identity of a similar car, including number plates to avoid fines for things such as road tax, insurance or even if they are snapped by speed cameras. Cloned cars are often used to commit a range of crimes.

Now, a Freedom of Information request has revealed the extent of the problem, with one district of London seeing a 697 per cent increase in fixed penalty notices being cancelled due to cloned cars - a huge rise in the last five years.

Top 10 car cloning hotspots in London

	London Borough Council	Number of PCNs cancelled in 2018/19 due to the car being a clone
1	Hackney	1160
2	Haringey	842
3	Barking & Dagenham	804
4	Waltham Forest	654
5	Ealing	503
6	Brent	410
7	Camden	386
8	Westminster	379
9	Harrow	350
10	Lambeth	306

Thousands of innocent drivers are becoming the victims of these cloning crimes, and have to deal with the distress and hassle of having to deal with a fine for something which they did not commit, often having to go to great lengths to prove it was not them driving the cloned car.

Despite the high numbers, figures revealed by the Metropolitan Police show that there were only 78 car cloning cases investigated in the entirety of 2018.

The Honest John website which made the report said: “Hackney Council saw the highest number of cloned cars in a single 12-month period with 1160 instances recorded between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019.

“Harrow Council recorded 350 cases of car cloning in 2018/19, a figure that’s 91 per cent higher than the previous 12 months. Waltham Forest experienced the largest increase over a five-year period with the number of cancelled PCNs soaring by 697 per cent.

“The true figure for the number of cloned cars on the road in greater London is thought to be much higher than the figures uncovered by HonestJohn.co.uk, given the complex and often lengthy nature of the PCN appeals process.”

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