March 9, 2005
NewsMax.com Wires
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Thieves rammed a vehicle through the back wall of a Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles office and stole 1,700 blank driver's licenses.
"This could be anything from a bunch of juveniles who want to be able to make IDs to buy beer, to major criminal activity or even terrorism," police spokesman Tim Bedwell said Tuesday. "We don't know what they took them for."
The theft occurred early Monday in a remote industrial area, authorities said. The thieves took blank licenses and laminated covers, a digital license camera, a camera computer and a license printer, DMV spokesman Kevin Malone said.
The equipment would not work without a connection to the DMV's mainframe computer, Malone said. "It would be very, very difficult to break the encryption," he said.
However, the officials said false information could be placed on blank licenses and covered with authentic laminates and holographic seals, making the fake licenses indistinguishable from the real thing.
"It's been pondered that this has national security interests," Bedwell said. "But it's easier to pass a fake ID to a teller than to use it to get on a plane and fly internationally."
© 2005 Associated Press.
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