ST. LOUIS — St. Charles police have discovered many of the temporary license plate tags and license plates across the St. Louis area are fake.
And, so are the insurance documents drivers have been showing police during traffic stops.
Now, the U.S. Secret Service, Missouri Department of Revenue, St. Louis and St. Charles police are involved and Mario Cooks, 34, of St. Louis is facing federal prison time because of it.
And it all began with a traffic stop St. Charles Officer Johnathan Weiss conducted following an I-Team report on how enforcement on license plate infractions was down.
“I think there's going to be hundreds based on what we saw after we executed a search warrant,” Weiss said. “He's made hundreds over the course of several months or maybe even years.”
Other departments, including Wentzville, cracked down on license plate enforcement following the I-Team’s coverage, too.
In July, the Wentzville Traffic Unit issued 277 summons for expired temporary tags, altered temporary tags and expired license plates.
The St. Charles Police Department ran its initiative from June 12 through September 12 and issued 587 tickets. The department is now on pace to have more than 1,200 tickets issued for license plate violations, its highest year ever.
The moment the sedan that prompted the investigation in question crossed Weiss’s path, not long after the initiative began, Weiss knew something was off.
“The sequence was not right and the font was a little funny, and sometimes the writing was offset,” Weiss said.
He pulled the driver over and asked about the temp tag.
“She admitted that she knew it was fraudulent and she purchased it from some guy at a gas station in St. Louis city,” Weiss said. “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.”
Court documents reveal undercover officers then started doing business with Cooks.
They bought fraudulent temp tags, insurance documents and license plates.
Weiss said investigators are still trying to determine how Cooks got ahold of Missouri Department of Revenue paper for his operation.
“I believe that the going rate was $60 for a temporary tag, $75 for an insurance card, and I believe the license plates were somewhere in the neighborhood of $600,” Weiss said.
Police raided Cooks’ St. Louis home this month.
They also found evidence that he was trying to make counterfeit cash, according to court documents.
Now, he’s facing up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both.
Tracy Berry is the Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case.
“We're not talking about a person who's bought a $2,000 car or $3,000 car, sometimes these counterfeit temp tags are on $50,000 cars,” Berry said. “These individuals are using these counterfeit tags in order to steal vehicles.
“They're turning up in violent crime offenses. 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.”
During the St. Charles crackdown, police arrested 38 people on a variety of charges including failure to register a vehicle, possession of drugs like Fentanyl and 28 of them had outstanding warrants from across the area.
Police raided Cooks’ home in the Mark Twain neighborhood last week, seizing computer equipment, counterfeit temporary motor vehicle documents and counterfeit motor vehicle titles.
Weiss still can’t believe what his one traffic stop uncovered.
“I still said when we were in the apartment executing the search warrant that this snowballed,” Weiss said.