BATON ROUGE - Deputies are investigating where 21 license plates with registrations came from after volunteers found them inside a homeless camp.

"I've never seen this before," said Todd Terrell, who discovered the stashes. "We see stolen plates all the time and I mean, people steal plates off of trailers and vehicles, but I've never seen this many license plates with the registration, rubber bands around them with the stickers missing"

Terrell, who heads United Cajun Navy, was helping litter clean-up group Keep Tiger Town Beautiful over the weekend.

"The interesting thing about them is that they had the paper registration rubber band around them and the stickers were off of them, so what they doing was they were selling these stickers or using them on stolen vehicles or vehicles that expired or stolen registration," Terrell suggested. 

The group reported the plates to the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office on Monday. They say all 21 plates come up as "surrendered" and likely stolen out of the trash, and are looking into why they were improperly disposed of.

"It's hard to say where they came from, but they're definitely not just stolen plates. They're stolen plates and registration forms," Terrell said. 

Terrell says their discovery is important for the general public.

"For these people to using stolen license plates and stolen registration stickers, it gives the impression that they're legal. So you're driving around if you get hit by one of these people that doesn't have insurance--it goes to show you, we're paying higher rates for people doing criminal activities."

No arrests have been made.

The following license plates were found: 

961-EUS
789-FBG
624-GDI
940-FHT
860-FJU