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Spotted today in Latvia, but it doesn't look like any of the European license plates.

It was also yellow from the front.

Do you have any idea?

License plate Numbers and letters on the plate changed, to protect owner of the car.

Willeke
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    It looks like the licence plate is written in the FE-Schrift, a font developed in Germany for use on licence plates. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FE-Schrift , and check the typical shape of the 0. This font is used in many countries, though in Latvia it is only used for tractor licence plates, which does not seem to match this BMW. –  Oct 28 '21 at 14:35
  • No such plates on Wikipedia's map of plates in Europe. Also probably illegal as this is not a standard EU licence plate (missing country code white-on-blue on the left and no country code sticker on the car). – jcaron Oct 28 '21 at 15:35
  • Could this be a custom plate, where you can order for ex. your name to be on the plate? – Violet Giraffe Oct 30 '21 at 10:17
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    @Willeke I'm not sure there's any point in protecting the owner - a licence plate is on public display all the time and is not private information. Also, changing the digits might make it harder to identify. – Criggie Oct 30 '21 at 23:34
  • @Criggie, just as you are no longer allowed to post photos of faces online, you should also not post photos of license plates, and identification had already happened. – Willeke Oct 31 '21 at 05:00

1 Answers1

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They are probably plates from Kyrgyzstan:

They could be "Foreign plates":

However, they do not exactly match:

  • They match the font
  • They match the color
  • They match the KG, country code for Kyrgyzstan, which appears on most current plates there
  • They match the 01 KG prefix found on most of those plates (01 is actually the code for the province, Bishkek in this case)

But:

  • They don't match the layout
  • They don't match the numbering as described on Wikipedia (01 KG nnnn x).

They do match the numbering of "regular" private vehicle plates (01 KG nnn xxx), but those are supposed to be black on white (and again, different layout):

Not sure if Wikipedia is not up to date or if someone is a bit on the edge of the law here...

Note that I believe that since they're (most likely) not EU plates (they should have the country code in white on blue on the left if they were), it is normally illegal to drive in the EU with such plates without a country code sticker on the car (the oval black on white sticker).

jcaron
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    (+1) Good find! It's probably simply a regular private registration number (a little higher in the Wikipedia article). The numbering scheme matches and that's more significant than the background color as these plates obviously do not follow the official layout and were possibly done out of country. – Relaxed Oct 28 '21 at 15:51
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    If it was in the "official" or Wikipedia format, a separate sticker is probably not needed since KG on the plates should suffice. The plate in question though probably doesn't meet the requirements of Vienna convention but I don't know how much Latvian police cares about it or if other national rules exist. – xngtng Oct 28 '21 at 16:07
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    @xngtng Also the proper or full-format Kyrgyz license plates do not fulfill the requirements in the Vienna convention for embedding the distinguishing sign into the license plate. First of all, they are using KG, which is the ISO-3166 country code and not KS, which is the international vehicle registration code for Kyrgyzstan. It is also required to have the country code clearly separated from the rest of the registration number. It is not allowed to have the province code (01), which essentially is a part of the national registration number in the far-left area intended for the country code. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Oct 28 '21 at 19:53
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo The vehicle registration code for Kyrgyzstan is KG since 2016. I would say the full-format shows KG quite clearly as the country code unlikely to be confused to be part of the registration number. – xngtng Oct 28 '21 at 20:59
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    I suggest that this is a Kyrgyzstani number plate that was made in Europe for some reason as a stop-gap measure. That would explain the non-standard format and the distinctive 'O'. – TonyK Oct 29 '21 at 14:41
  • @TonyK Kyrgyzstan actually use the same FE-Schrift font, so that doesn't change much. Indeed it's probably been done elsewhere, but one wonders how one can register a car in country where they are not. If the car was bought there, they should have real plates. If the car was bought in Latvia or some other country, it should probably have local temporary plates. Anything else hints of impropriety and probably trying to avoid paying taxes somewhere. – jcaron Oct 29 '21 at 15:36
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    Kyrgyzstan's license plate lookup matches the car, please merge the answers if you see fit. – Koterpillar Oct 30 '21 at 11:00
  • @Koterpillar, thanks for running that search but I do not feel the amount of detail is appropriate on a website, certainly for a car we do know nothing about. – Willeke Oct 30 '21 at 11:08
  • @Willeke what information do you feel is inappropriate? The make, model and color results correspond to the car's picture which is what I wanted to point out. – Koterpillar Oct 30 '21 at 11:13
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    I am at this time trying to edit the photo, so that no longer the whole license plate can be read, more detail is not needed. – Willeke Oct 30 '21 at 11:17
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    @Koterpillar, how would you feel if someone uses that car to escape a nasty situation and it being on internet points the nasty people to the innocent needing protection? – Willeke Oct 30 '21 at 11:48
  • So the answer is "the actual license plate number" - thank you for clarification, it makes sense. – Koterpillar Nov 01 '21 at 00:57
  • I suspect it is a locally made replacement for a lost or stolen plate. In that region I have seen fake plates apparently used for tax/insurance evasion purposes to drive (otherwise legit) used vehicles across the border, but the ones I have seen all purport to be from the western EU (mostly Belgium, Netherlands, Germany or Italy). – user149408 Apr 03 '22 at 17:43