Is it true that photos can be taken of your license plate and used as reason to pull you over at another time?

I know many people will automatically say yes to this but I'm wondering does anyone have any hard facts or backup to wether this is true or just an urban myth? I have heard in various cases of contraband; examples: your town doesn't allow alchohol on sundays but theres a twenty four hour liquor store right out of town; or your state doesn't allow fireworks but there is a large fireworks store near the border; or your sate doesn't allow certain firearms, etc that police will set up sting operations whereby they photograph your car in the parking lot of said business legally purchasing your "soon-to-be" contraband and then send your information ahead to officers waiting to nab you at the city/county/state line after you have crossed of course and your legal item becomes an illegal item. It seems improbable to me? How would the officers store all this information, is there just a database loaded with license numbers saying "pull this guy over he might have metal numchucks" ?