ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) – Imagine taking your late model Chevy Camaro to a state inspection site and having it confiscated as stolen property.

It’s happening in Missouri and in the rest of the country.

Sergeant Tom Naughton with the Saint Louis County Police auto crimes unit says the newly-surfacing crime is called “car cloning”.  Thieves steal your car and take it to a shop that changes the vehicle identification numbers to those assigned to another, but non-stolen, car.  Then your car can be sold to an unsuspecting buyer who thinks he has a clear title.

Sergeant Naughton was a weekend guest on the KMOX Auto Show.

He says thieves have also been taking sports cars from dealers’ lots or auction sites and change those vehicle identification numbers, too.

The sergeant says state license officials have a new system designed to identify cars that have been illegally cloned.