CaFordDude
Charter Member
It’s Obscure... It’s Gone In A Few Seconds!
By
Steve Wallach
Gone in a few seconds: treasure from your car. As precious metals prices soar, catalytic
converters are now valuable targets for thieves
As prices of precious metals skyrocket, thieves are targeting an obscure component of
automotive exhaust systems in lightning thefts that can be accomplished in less than a
minute, police and automotive experts say.
The component is the catalytic converter, which has been a mandatory part of exhaust
systems since 1975. Police across the country say they have seen a dramatic rise in thefts
of the components in recent months.
If you peer inside a used catalytic converter, nothing looks salvageable, much less
valuable. But some of the gray gunk in there hides three expensive precious metals.
Catalytic converters have only small traces of the metals - platinum, palladium and
rhodium - but there's enough in them for a thief to resell stolen units for up to $200
apiece. Rhodium is among the most expensive metals on Earth, commanding as much as
$6,000 an ounce on the open market.
Scrap dealers are paying top dollar - platinum, palladium, rhodium inside of them - and
they're getting top dollar on resale. The word spreads very quickly about what they're
worth according to many police and garage experts.
Easy to find = easy to steal. The converters are inviting targets because they're easy to
grab. Mounted on the exterior undercarriage of vehicles, they can be removed in about a
minute or less, with any standard metal cutting tool. An enterprising thief in a crowded
parking lot or garage can make off with enough converters to clear $2,000 or $3,000 in
half an hour.
These thieves are targeting shopping malls, school parking lots, busy business districts,
and they are hitting these places in the daylight. A lot of the large passenger cars - SUVs,
trucks and vans - have two, so those are a more enticing target.
A woman returned to the parking lot after a short shopping trip to a supermarket in
DeSoto, Texas, and quickly learned that something was wrong with her SUV, a Toyota
4-Runner. She turned it on, and it made a whoooom noise, she said. She also said that
she was in the store for less than 20 minutes. She recounted that she jumped out of the
vehicle, thinking it was going to explode.
She had the right idea. Besides rendering the exhaust system inoperable, a missing
catalytic converter can be dangerous.
On some of these cars, if that pipe gets cut off near some wiring or a fuel line or a gas
tank -which in some cases are not shielded - there is a possibility of a fire and/or
explosion Easy pickings in crowded lots
The woman mentioned above is just one of many victims in small-town DeSoto, Texas,
population 37,000.
The 4-Runner is the most common target of thieves, according to Los Angeles Police
Department’s Burglary Unit, which issued a public warning about what it called a "new
disturbing trend." The 4-Runner sits high off the ground, and its converter is attached
with four bolts that are easily sawed or cut off, making it simple for thieves to duck
underneath the vehicle, steal the converter, and be gone in seconds..
The Kia Sportage, with a similar profile, is also popular. They're the easiest to get under
and the easiest to remove. But any vehicle made after 1975 is a potential target. This is
certainly something that could happen in your driveway.
More commonly, it happens in parking lots and garages, where dozens of vehicles are
lined up, ready for thieves to start stealing the converters..
I've heard of people going into apartment complexes in the middle of the night - just
taking a handsaw, getting up under someone's car and sawing the converter off. They
collect a few of them and take off somewhere to be recycled. It's happening everywhere
now. And it’s shocking how fast this crime is growing.
A hard crime to uncover The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a national trade
association, said there were no national statistics on the pilferage of catalytic converters,
which are generally lumped in with other motor vehicle burglary incidents. But it said it
had seen a sharp rise in reports of thefts, and it urged scrap dealers to be suspicious of
anyone walking in with a converter.
As it happens, there's not much a recycler can do. Catalytic converters don't have serial
numbers, so they can't be tracked, making a stolen converter all but impossible for a scrap
dealer to identify.
It's very hard to trace it. You would have to go back and see what type of actual catalytic
converter was placed on that vehicle and try to trace it back to the vehicle it was stolen
from. An almost impossible task.
While police tell us that drug addicts are most frequently found responsible for the thefts,
the treasure in the exhaust system is rich enough that it can lure some surprising culprits.
In December, a report was made that a former member of the Board of Aldermen in
Arlington, Tenn., was arrested after Shelby County sheriff's deputies found him tucked
under a Buick station wagon. The man, co-owner of an auto parts store in town, was
trying to steal catalytic converters from vehicles in the Tennessee Highway Patrol's own
impound lot.
If catalytic converters are so valuable that people will actually try to steal them from the
police, what does that mean for everyday car owners? Unless you can garage your
vehicle 24 hours a day, anyone can climb under your car and cut off the catalytic
converter. There is not a lot you can do. You have to go to sleep eventually.
Recently, some cities are instituting a program they call Etch & Catch. It’s similar to the
programs currently referred to as VIN Etching, which many cities already do. It’s a bit
more difficult to etch a Catalytic Converter. We’re doing some research on those cities
using Etch and Catch, and we’ll send the information out in a future report.
Stay safe and secure!
©2008MSR
By
Steve Wallach
Gone in a few seconds: treasure from your car. As precious metals prices soar, catalytic
converters are now valuable targets for thieves
As prices of precious metals skyrocket, thieves are targeting an obscure component of
automotive exhaust systems in lightning thefts that can be accomplished in less than a
minute, police and automotive experts say.
The component is the catalytic converter, which has been a mandatory part of exhaust
systems since 1975. Police across the country say they have seen a dramatic rise in thefts
of the components in recent months.
If you peer inside a used catalytic converter, nothing looks salvageable, much less
valuable. But some of the gray gunk in there hides three expensive precious metals.
Catalytic converters have only small traces of the metals - platinum, palladium and
rhodium - but there's enough in them for a thief to resell stolen units for up to $200
apiece. Rhodium is among the most expensive metals on Earth, commanding as much as
$6,000 an ounce on the open market.
Scrap dealers are paying top dollar - platinum, palladium, rhodium inside of them - and
they're getting top dollar on resale. The word spreads very quickly about what they're
worth according to many police and garage experts.
Easy to find = easy to steal. The converters are inviting targets because they're easy to
grab. Mounted on the exterior undercarriage of vehicles, they can be removed in about a
minute or less, with any standard metal cutting tool. An enterprising thief in a crowded
parking lot or garage can make off with enough converters to clear $2,000 or $3,000 in
half an hour.
These thieves are targeting shopping malls, school parking lots, busy business districts,
and they are hitting these places in the daylight. A lot of the large passenger cars - SUVs,
trucks and vans - have two, so those are a more enticing target.
A woman returned to the parking lot after a short shopping trip to a supermarket in
DeSoto, Texas, and quickly learned that something was wrong with her SUV, a Toyota
4-Runner. She turned it on, and it made a whoooom noise, she said. She also said that
she was in the store for less than 20 minutes. She recounted that she jumped out of the
vehicle, thinking it was going to explode.
She had the right idea. Besides rendering the exhaust system inoperable, a missing
catalytic converter can be dangerous.
On some of these cars, if that pipe gets cut off near some wiring or a fuel line or a gas
tank -which in some cases are not shielded - there is a possibility of a fire and/or
explosion Easy pickings in crowded lots
The woman mentioned above is just one of many victims in small-town DeSoto, Texas,
population 37,000.
The 4-Runner is the most common target of thieves, according to Los Angeles Police
Department’s Burglary Unit, which issued a public warning about what it called a "new
disturbing trend." The 4-Runner sits high off the ground, and its converter is attached
with four bolts that are easily sawed or cut off, making it simple for thieves to duck
underneath the vehicle, steal the converter, and be gone in seconds..
The Kia Sportage, with a similar profile, is also popular. They're the easiest to get under
and the easiest to remove. But any vehicle made after 1975 is a potential target. This is
certainly something that could happen in your driveway.
More commonly, it happens in parking lots and garages, where dozens of vehicles are
lined up, ready for thieves to start stealing the converters..
I've heard of people going into apartment complexes in the middle of the night - just
taking a handsaw, getting up under someone's car and sawing the converter off. They
collect a few of them and take off somewhere to be recycled. It's happening everywhere
now. And it’s shocking how fast this crime is growing.
A hard crime to uncover The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a national trade
association, said there were no national statistics on the pilferage of catalytic converters,
which are generally lumped in with other motor vehicle burglary incidents. But it said it
had seen a sharp rise in reports of thefts, and it urged scrap dealers to be suspicious of
anyone walking in with a converter.
As it happens, there's not much a recycler can do. Catalytic converters don't have serial
numbers, so they can't be tracked, making a stolen converter all but impossible for a scrap
dealer to identify.
It's very hard to trace it. You would have to go back and see what type of actual catalytic
converter was placed on that vehicle and try to trace it back to the vehicle it was stolen
from. An almost impossible task.
While police tell us that drug addicts are most frequently found responsible for the thefts,
the treasure in the exhaust system is rich enough that it can lure some surprising culprits.
In December, a report was made that a former member of the Board of Aldermen in
Arlington, Tenn., was arrested after Shelby County sheriff's deputies found him tucked
under a Buick station wagon. The man, co-owner of an auto parts store in town, was
trying to steal catalytic converters from vehicles in the Tennessee Highway Patrol's own
impound lot.
If catalytic converters are so valuable that people will actually try to steal them from the
police, what does that mean for everyday car owners? Unless you can garage your
vehicle 24 hours a day, anyone can climb under your car and cut off the catalytic
converter. There is not a lot you can do. You have to go to sleep eventually.
Recently, some cities are instituting a program they call Etch & Catch. It’s similar to the
programs currently referred to as VIN Etching, which many cities already do. It’s a bit
more difficult to etch a Catalytic Converter. We’re doing some research on those cities
using Etch and Catch, and we’ll send the information out in a future report.
Stay safe and secure!
©2008MSR
I never did like cats....
