18 U.S.C. § 2321
Section 2321 · Trafficking in certain motor vehicles or motor vehicle parts
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 60 court decisions — leading case United States v. Johnson (1995)
Most recently applied in United States v. Everett Jerome Tripodis (February 2024)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Whoever buys, receives, possesses, or obtains control of, with intent to sell or otherwise dispose of, a motor vehicle or motor vehicle part, knowing that an identification number for such motor vehicle or part has been removed, obliterated, tampered with, or altered, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply if the removal, obliteration, tampering, or alteration—
(1) is caused by collision or fire; or
(2) is not a violation of section 511 of this title.
(c) As used in this section, the terms “identification number” and “motor vehicle” have the meaning given those terms in section 511 of this title.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1994—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 103–322 substituted “fined under this title” for “fined not more than $20,000”.