ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis man could face 10 years in prison after he admitted to making and selling fake temporary tags, dealer plates and insurance cards.
Mario C. Cooks, 35, entered a guilty plea to three felony counts of fraudulent transfer of an authentication feature. In the plea, he admitted to producing and selling 329 fake temporary tags, 27 fake insurance cards and dealer license plates.
Cooks said he sold the fake temporary tags for $60 each and the dealer plates were sold for $650.
The investigation began with a traffic stop in St. Charles in June of 2022.
“She admitted that she knew it was fraudulent and she purchased it from some guy at a gas station in St. Louis city,” Officer Johnathan Weiss told the 5 On Your Side I-Team last year. “We spoke about the kind of repercussions there could be for that and how that can be considered a forgery offense.
“She then provided me with a phone number of the person that she purchased that from the temp tag from," he said.
According to a press release from U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Sayler Fleming, investigators then went undercover to buy a counterfeit tag and two fake insurance cards.
After getting a court-approved warrant to search Cooks' home, investigators found computer equipment, a printer and two fake insurance cards. They also found blank sheets of temporary Missouri Department of Revenue paper that included security features of real temporary tags.
Investigators said computer analysis found he used the equipment to produce hundreds of fake tags.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Berry, who is prosecuting the case, told the 5 On Your Side I-Team the fake tags were being used in other crimes.
“They're turning up in violent crime offenses," she said. "So this is something that it's more than just someone trying to avoid paying a couple hundred dollars or even a couple of thousand dollars on a vehicle.”