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Dozen dummy police cars stolen in Moscow region

Thieves may face up to two years in prison

MOSCOW, August 10. /TASS/. Moscow region’s ministry for transport and road infrastructure has to order additional dummy police patrol cars after a dozen of more than 100 decoy cars used as a deterrent to speeding have been stolen, region’s transport minister Igor Treskov told RIAMO news agency on Thursday.

"They keep stealing decoy police cars. More than ten have been stolen. We are installing them anew, ordering new dummies," he said.

Road services install dummy patrol cars at most dangerous for drivers road sections, Treskov told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily earlier. Nobody has been killed at these sections as the drivers hit the brakes before they realize that road police patrol is a fake. That is why the ministry is planning to plant more such decoy police cars on roads of the Moscow region.

Thieves may face up to two years in prison for stealing dummy police cars under Part 1 of Article 158 of the Russian Criminal Code ("secret larceny of other people’s property"). Similar incidents also happen in other Russian regions. In the latest incident, a man is charged under this article for an attempt to steal a dummy police patrol car on a highway in the Vladimir Region, northeast of the Moscow region, last week.