Catalytic Converter Thefts on the Rise
Reported by edhat readers
-
A neighbor told me that about three nights ago, his car was stolen from the 2500 block of De La Vina Street. It was found a few blocks away. Last night, a catalytic converter was stolen from another car in the same block.
-
My neighbor, Councilmember Kristen Sneddon, said a catalytic converter was just stolen off her Prius. It was in her driveway! Please look out for one another in your neighborhoods.
20 Comments
-
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 08:31 PMYou can buy a shield off Amazon for $150 and have it installed for $100.
-
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 05:35 PMYes they do come back to the same cars, my friends was stolen twice. Who ever is buying these is just as guilty, they know these are stolen, how but they contact the police when these get brought in. It was caught on camera, it was the people driving around in the trucks picking up scrape metal, also homeless people who stay in the campers on the side of the road, my brother located some homeless people at their motor home and he did get his converters back from them.
-
1
-
-
Jun 15, 2022 06:34 PMStolen catalytic converters are the opposite of scrap metal; they are stolen for the precious metals they contain.
-
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 11:40 AMI'm just curious and have no mechanical knowledge: If you haven't got a way to garage your vehicle, is there a way to hook it to a battery so that if someone tries to steal it, they get a helluva quick shock, enough to make them scream and leave a burn but not potentially kill them?
-
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 04:17 PMYou could hook an electric cattle gate controller to it. My grandfather used to use an old ford coil hooked to his toilet seat for a little surprise.
-
2
-
1
-
Jun 14, 2022 08:49 AMYou'd think an active city council person would have the chief of police answering for this at the very next meeting. It's ridiculous that we pay these people 6 figures, retire at 50 with full benefits and they seem to have no effect on crime whatsoever. Where are the neighborhood patrols? Has anyone ever seen a police car on their street? Where are the stakeouts and stings? They seem to have plenty of resources to hand out tickets, but when active crime is happening, they are nowhere to be seen.
-
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 09:32 AMAll in favor of starting a privately funded watch group that tackles converter thefts?
-
2
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 07:50 AMIf the state will pay me 100k per year I will develop east to implement regulations that see the resellers need to tally serial numbers, sales transactions and customer/supplier databases.
It’s really like the simplest issue to solve and the fact that we don’t do any of this to prevent this needless crime is appalling. It’s the EXACT issue with the war on drugs. Too much focus on users/addicted and not enough on the distributors.
-
1
-
-
Jun 15, 2022 06:38 PMLearn the basic facts: there's no resale market for catalytic converters, which are stolen for the precious metals they contain, not for their function.
-
-
-
Jun 15, 2022 06:27 PMEl Smurfo, The converters are disassembled and the precious metals are removed for processing. No reselling of functional converters. Serializing the converters is a feel good do nothing thing. The thief's don't inspect for marking before removal. On the other hand if a deterrent is attached to the converter they quickly move on .
-
-
1
-
Jun 14, 2022 09:31 AMI swear our politicians love to put the property of the common citizen on a silver platter
-
2
-
2
-
Jun 14, 2022 08:51 AMMany surrounding counties have programs to serialize the converters, making them less desirable for resale. Santa Barbara is just a big fat sitting duck for property crime with thieves driving all the way from Sacramento for our safe haven of crime.
-
2
-
-
Jun 13, 2022 11:13 PMYeah, seems ripe for a classic sting operation.
-
-
-
Jun 13, 2022 09:11 PMUh, pretty sure they extract the metals by taking them apart.
Melting the good stuff down.
No way to track that.
-
-
-
Jun 18, 2022 08:04 AMIt’s definitely traceable, the question is who pays for it and when does the city/county/state implement it. It’s very simple. If you buy cobalt, some regulatory agency knows about it (the IRS for example).
Now, we just need an agency designed for carefully tracking the sale of these rare metals from auto shops to scrapyards, and penalties to disincentivize these crooks.
-
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 12:15 PMNot really, just a little bit of chemistry knowledge (or google) and some readily available chemicals and supplies. Had a cousin try his hand at extracting gold from old circuit boards, seemed way more trouble that it was worth at the scale he did it. Stinky process too.
-
1
-
-
Jun 14, 2022 11:46 AMIsn't "melting down" & separating metals complicated and doesn't it require a lot of expensive specialized equiptment? If so, maybe it requires "middle-man" labs or foundries.
-
6
-
-
Jun 13, 2022 06:50 PMClearly this industry is supported by scurrilous fences who accept the converters and pay for them. The way to solve this is to get a task force counties wide to locate these dealers and stop the market. It really cannot be that hard to find out who is buying these.
-
4
-
-
Jun 13, 2022 05:34 PMAnyone with a Prius, should run out and get a cage welded over the CC. My son has had two stolen, not cheap and often on back order. The thieves keep circling around and have been caught in SLO, Orcutt, Carpinteria and even LA. Same group, family/cousins/friends from the Sacramento area. They seem to wait a bit, watch your car and come back.
-
4
-
-
Jun 13, 2022 06:37 PMAbsolutely all Prius owners should have one. These folks are so brazen and quick that they have been known to return to the same cars to steal the cat a second time. Here is a list of the most common targets in the western US:
2001-21 Toyota Prius.
1985-2021 Ford F-Series.
1989-2020 Honda Accord.
1990-2022 Ford Econoline.
1999-2021 Chevrolet Silverado.
2007-20 Subaru Outback.
2007-17 Jeep Patriot.
2003-11 Honda Element.