If a criminal drives into Hialeah, police will know about it.

License plate readers will be installed at city entrances, scanning drivers’ tags and alerting law enforcement when unsavory characters motor their way into Hialeah.

City Council members on Tuesday approved the funds for the project, which will cost $86,300.

The cameras will go up at two intersections, though the city has not decided where, said Chief of Staff Arnie Alonso.

A police commander at Tuesday’s meeting said the plan is to have the cameras running by the end of the year.

“Any car that comes in, it’s picking up the tags. So if we have any stolen vehicles, any vehicle that’s wanted in a crime, the computer will pick it up,” said Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez. “Hopefully we’ll have these at every entrance to our city.”

Hernandez said the cameras constantly scan tags to identify vehicles that may have been used in a crime, belong to a missing person, or have been stolen. The camera’s send the information back to national and state data bases. If there’s a match, the police department immediately gets a notification.

Hialeah won’t be the first city to use the cameras: Doral already does, as do the police departments of Golden Beach and Sunny Isles, according to a spokesman at Bal Harbour, which spearheaded the project. Follow @Cveiga on Twitter.