Police arrested a driver with license plates from Temu: "I have never encountered such a thing in my life"

Police officers in Norway encountered a case this week that was new even for them: a driver was driving around with license plates purchased on Temu. The car was stopped on Wednesday evening at a gas station in the town of Jessheim, north of Oslo, and the driver, a man in his 40s, was later taken for testing on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs, the Norwegian newspaper VG reported.

"He had, literally, plates from Temu," said Rune Isaksen, operations commander for the Øst police district. According to him, it was not clear how the officers discovered where the plates came from, and it is even possible that the driver himself told them he had purchased them on the site.

When asked if he had encountered a similar case in the past, Isaksen replied:

"No, I must say that I have not encountered such a thing before."

According to NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, the officers discovered that unlike standard license plates, those installed on the car were made of plastic. The police clarified that these are illegal plates.

However, the unusual online purchase quickly turned out to be only one problem. According to Isaksen, there were "several other things" that caught the attention of the patrol officers. Following the inspection, a suspicion arose that the driver was driving under the influence of drugs, and he was taken for a blood test to substantiate the suspicion.

Temu is an international online marketplace owned by the Chinese company PDD Holdings, where a huge variety of products are sold. Among the items offered on the site, one can also find car plates, but purchasing them online, as the driver discovered, does not make them legal license plates.