LAWRENCE — If you woke up Monday morning and your car was gone, chances are it had New Hampshire plates on it, or it was unregistered.
Police Chief John Romero said the special operations division has been tracking cars parked overnight in the city with New Hampshire plates on them.
Monday morning between 3:30 and 8:30 a.m., 28 cars were towed by Coady's Towing for being illegally registered in New Hampshire or for being unregistered and parked on a public way.
Dubbed Operation Registration, it started out to track cars whose owners live in the city but register them in New Hampshire where no insurance is required, Romero said.
But as they checked locations around the city, officers found a significant number of vehicles that were not registered at all, Romero said.
Police reports of the towing showed 10 of the 28 cars towed early Monday morning were improperly registered in New Hampshire, 12 had expired registrations, and six were unregistered.
The cars were taken to Coady's tow yard on Marston Street, but none remained there yesterday.
"Ninety-nine percent of them left," said tow operator Frank Coady yesterday. "They got them registered and came in and got them."
Romero said over the past few years, the number of New Hampshire-registered vehicles has dropped.
He said enforcement efforts by the city, and the reduction in auto insurance premiums brought about by the results of the wide-ranging insurance fraud investigations have led more people to register their cars in the city.
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