Police surveillance vehicle data leaked online; drug traffickers use search engines to identify vehicles

The special wheels and tires of police surveillance vehicles can be easily identified by poisonous insects. (Photo by reporter Liu Qinghou)

The criminal investigation and prevention vehicles used by domestic police agencies to hide identities and detect and prevent crimes have been exposed by criminals using Internet searches! The Criminal Investigation Team of the Police Branch under the Taipei City Police Department recently discovered that when searching for drug dealers and drug addicts, their whereabouts were discovered early, causing the investigation to almost fail. The police once thought that an internal police officer had leaked the secret. After in-depth investigation, they found out that during the eight years that Ko Wenzhe was in power, the Taipei City Government had forced the detection and prevention vehicles whose vehicle registration information was originally concealed to be listed in the budget white paper. As a result, the information was clearly visible to interested parties under special search conditions on the Internet.

It is understood that the detection and prevention vehicles are mainly used for special security, detection and prevention command and crime detection and prevention services, including following, ambushing, detaining and arresting criminal police when handling cases. The appearance of detection and prevention vehicles is usually the same as that of ordinary civilian vehicles (also known as camouflage vehicles), which makes it easier to "hide invisibly" when handling cases. Especially when performing ambush or static surveillance, the vehicle often needs to idle quietly to facilitate concealment and avoid suspects from becoming suspicious.

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When the Criminal Police Brigade and investigation teams of each branch of the Taipei City Police Department were searching for drug dealers at their respective ambush stations, they found that the targeted targets sometimes suddenly moved their positions when they were about to be arrested by the police, and sometimes even disappeared inexplicably. Since drug lords have always been very cautious about their surroundings and would change their rental accommodation from time to time, the police originally considered this "a normal and reasonable suspicion."

It was not until recently when a joint task force of the North City Police and the Criminal Bureau was arresting a drug dealer that they unexpectedly found detailed vehicle registration information including the license plate number of a police surveillance vehicle on the drug dealer. The police realized that the "problem was serious."

The police finally expressed their righteousness to many of the drug dealers they had seized, and then they realized that the drug dealer circle had already known that once they noticed that there were unknown vehicles following them around or parked at rental properties, they would record the license plate number, and then paste the vehicle number and special keywords into an online search engine. Using the search and additional AI functions, they could immediately know whether it was a police unit's surveillance vehicle and which unit's vehicle it was.

The police immediately conducted random verification based on the drug dealer's confession, and sure enough, detailed vehicle registration information appeared, such as: affiliation, vehicle type, vehicle attributes, displacement, and year, month, and day of production. It even indicated that the data source belonged to the Beijing Municipal Government's unit budget document.

Drug traffickers also bluntly point out that since police surveillance vehicles are purchased in large quantities by the National Police Service through tenders, their brands and equipment are uniform, and the police officers who use them do not upgrade and modify official vehicles. Therefore, as long as they see a specific brand of vehicle, tires, wheels, and aluminum rims, such as "Mitsubishi vehicles with 15-inch wheels," they can determine that more than 80% of them are surveillance vehicles.

The project officers were shocked when they heard the drug dealer's "confession" and have now reported it to the relevant units through channels to find ways to block it in the future or to completely change the license plate as a response.

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Information about Taipei City Police’s surveillance and prevention vehicles has been released in detail. (Reporter Liu Qinghou took photos from the Internet)