Abstract: A surveillance system for covertly monitoring vehicle license plates. A portable covert license plate reader is provided for automatically reading license plate images for each of a plurality of moving vehicles that pass through a field of view of a camera in the reader without detection by the moving vehicles. A mobile surveillance unit is located in proximity to the license plate reader for receiving license plate character strings extracted by the reader, comparing each received image with a list of target plates of interest to law enforcement, and generating an audible alarm and a visual display when a match is found. An operations center is also provided for communicating with the mobile surveillance unit to receive license plate data from the mobile surveillance unit and to provide updates to the list of target plates stored at the mobile surveillance unit.