Santa Barbara police have launched an investigation into two incidents in which stolen vehicles were resold with fraudulent documentation and stolen license plates, according to Sgt. Riley Harwood.

In both incidents, which occurred July 15-16, victims purchased Toyota Tacoma trucks for very low prices only to have them stolen shortly afterward, Harwood said.

The trucks were also discovered to have had their license plates replaced with stolen plates from other Tacoma trucks, and each had forged vehicle identification numbers (VINs) and titles.

Harwood said each incident constituted theft by false pretenses and that the forgery was done very elaborately.

“It was quite a sophisticated scam,” Harwood said. “It seems to be different suspects, but given the strong similarity of the incidents, they very well could have been working together.”

Both trucks were sold in Santa Barbara, and one was found to be stolen out of Santa Maria and the other out of Bakersfield.

Harwood said the fact that the plates were replaced with those of the same make of vehicle can be potentially deceiving to officers because they might not immediately see a problem when running the license numbers through the database.

Additionally, there have been reports from Santa Barbara residents of stolen license plates, and the plates on the truck stolen from Santa Maria were traced back to another Santa Maria resident’s truck.

Harwood said license plate theft is difficult to prevent against because it is not something that people often check for.

“Unfortunately, it’s very easy for people who park their cars on the street or in the driveway to have their license plates stolen,” Harwood said. “People don’t really look at their license plates that frequently … and I think the perps are able to take advantage of that.”

— Noozhawk intern Patrick Kulp can be reached at pkulp@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.