So, when a string of illegal dumping sites appeared across Greater Manchester, all bearing the hallmarks of the same culprit, to say the police force was frustrated would be an understatement. The fly-tipping itself threw up no surprises from mattresses to white goods, rubble, and more, but catching the culprit was anything but straightforward.
Luckily, the perpetrator had made one critical mistake. They’d kept showing up in the same vehicle. This fatal error gave number plates the chance to solve yet another crime.
Across a fair few of the flytippers’ dumping sites, surveillance cameras spotted a familiar van. And while the images weren’t exactly crystal clear and the driver was barely visible, one detail stood out every time the van reared its ugly head: the number plate.
Fortunately, a number plate was all the police needed.
Using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems, officers traced the van to a residential address in Greater Manchester. And while there were celebrations in the force that they’d finally found their man, what started as a fly-tipping investigation quickly turned into something far more serious.
Because when police executed a search warrant, they didn’t just find evidence of illegal dumping. They found unlicensed firearms.
When police arrived at the suspect’s address, there was everything from fly-tipped waste to documents linking the suspect to the van. However, much to the surprise of the officers, they also uncovered stolen goods, weapons, and other items that turned a minor environmental crime into a full-blown criminal case.
And all of this was down to number plates, with Chief Inspector Neil Griffen summing it up best when he said: “The number plate gave us everything. Without it, we’d still be chasing ghosts.”
And that’s exactly the point. What started as a low-level environmental offence became a doorway to a much larger, potentially dangerous operation, all thanks to a registration plate caught on camera.
While it’s easy to dismiss fly-tipping as a nuisance rather than a crime, this case shows that it’s often a sign of something more sinister at play.
Unlicensed waste carriers, organised crime groups, and individuals looking to make quick cash frequently use the same vehicles for multiple illicit activities, and ANPR technology gives police the power to connect those dots in surprising ways.
By logging vehicle movements across the country in real time, number plate data helps identify patterns, link suspects, and justify warrants that might otherwise be hard to obtain.
In this case, a registration plate was more than just a lead, it was the key to solving a serious crime. The digital breadcrumb trail it created helped bring a suspected criminal to justice, and possibly prevented far more serious crimes from being carried out.
Whether it’s a felled tree in Northumberland or fly-tipping in Manchester, one thing is becoming clear: Number plates don’t just solve crimes. They reveal them.