It's good to see something is done. Let's hope this steamrolls into a nationwide manhunt for these criminals. They should also consider targeting and auditing shops that buy used car parts. Making it extremely difficult to fence these things will be practical and useful because they aren't sold and reused as is - the rare earth metals are extracted. Something your average criminal won't be capable of doing in their garage.
California just passed a law to this end, which is pretty straightforward and effectively turns the grey market into a black market. A black market will still exist, but it will be a lot harder for legitimate junkyards, auto repair shops, and recycling facilities to look the other way.
It basically mandates KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures for companies that buy or sell catalytic converters, and it makes buying or selling a catalytic converter without documentation that it was obtained legally a crime. It won't completely eliminate the problem, and it'll be harder unless Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico also take similar steps. But it should also enable more targeting and auditing. One part of this case was filed in California, so I bet they had some kind of sting operation that was made a lot easier when they can lean on a low-level junkyard dealer to testify against the people higher up in the black market.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-25/newsom-s...
This is worse than the original problem. When did we become so comfortable with the government mandating presentation of papers and tracking of private transactions?
Effective, privacy-preserving law enforcement is difficult.
That doesn’t mean we should cut corners through ever-increasing state oversight targeted at the latest symptoms of criminality.
The choice isn’t between laws like this and having your catalytic converter stolen. The choice is between law enforcement actually doing their job, or invasive and ineffectual laws like this.
The justice department, in the very article we’re discussing, investigated and took down this ring without California’s new “KYC” regulations.
>> The choice is between law enforcement actually doing their job, or invasive and ineffectual laws like this.
I'm on guard for overreah all the time, but I'm OK with showing ID to buy alcohol, drive a car, fly on a plane, sell items that should rarely be done in bulk outside of rare conditions, like a bunch of catalytic converters.
Have you ever run a business? You have to track a lot already. For the IRS, for your business license, for auditing, for compliance depending on what goods and services you sell. You know like firearms, tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals are big ones, but also animals, chemicals, certain kinds of technology. If you require a federal permit, if you sell goods across state, international, if you ship things. Like, I feel like this cat came out of the bag before the 18th century, based on my understanding of the regulation of businesses in the United States.
After Timothy McVeigh blew up a building with a truck full of agricultural supplies.
In Britain, criminals were stealing the thick, copper cables used for power and signaling of the railway. They wrapped a chain around cables near a road crossing, attached it to a truck, and dragged a significant length of cable away, to sell as scrap.
That naturally means the railway can't be used for many hours, occasionally over a day, and costs a tremendous about to repair. (It is one of the most safety-critical large systems around.) There's huge disruption, as 600 people per train every 20 minutes simply don't fit on any other means of transport.
Compared to catalytic converters, the disruption to society is far greater, the replacement cost much higher, and the scrap value relatively lower.
About 10 years ago, a law was introduced forbidding scrap metal dealers from paying cash, and requiring them to check ID. That led to a 30% drop in theft.
Is that a reasonable law?
The U.S. has always been like this, especially since taking down the mob in the 70's and the War On Drugs in the 80's. Out of all the laws, most people aren't going to be hemmed up with catalytic converter KYC compared to things such as the War On Drugs and the watering down of the 4th amendment.
The fundamental problem here is that pretty much every car has a fairly unsecured cat underneath it and that law enforcement DGAF. The problem will persist until you fix one of those two.
‘Bills of sale evidencing acquisition of all major component parts used to restore the vehicle. If the vehicle was wholly or partially restored with “used” parts, the receipts must contain the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the vehicle(s) from which the part(s) were taken.’
They really don't care.
Property crimes don't matter anymore. When my friends got their catalytic converters stolen the police never even bothered to show up. Taking statements may not get their cats back, but it goes towards building up a large enough case to justify a unit to handle it.
You are correct though. Our DA is a "soft on crime" type. As a result, all forms of criminal behavior have increased dramatically in the last several years.
If you’re referring to that SF DA that was refusing to prosecute people that was a case where their public platform was to stop over criminalizing but it turned out that their parents were terrorists and they just wanted them out of jail.
Gotta get all the cat converters you can before all the cars are electric!
Drill in, destroy the the charging port on the car, retrieve the cable and sell on Ebay. How much do one of those charging cables go? $200? If not, and if the owner does something to lock the cable, cutting it for the copper is still worth a few dollars.
https://electrek.co/2022/02/07/tesla-supercharger-cables-sto...
> If not, and if the owner does something to lock the cable, cutting it for the copper is still worth a few dollars.
Worth the risk of electrocution with a possibly live 50-350kW flowing through a CCS charger cable? Seems like a different level of risk than a catalytic converter.
They should also consider targeting and auditing shops that buy used car parts
So, it'd eat into some of the criminal's profits, but probably not enough to significantly reduce theft. So efforts are likely better spent elsewhere.
This is uniquely a CA issue, some after-market vendors wont even sip to CA/NY; however, most states will allow you to retrieve them from junked cars and will personally do that for you if you are willing to pay for their time--most have pick a part solutions as it's cheaper on labour to do it that way since dismantling/sorting/testing is very labour/time intensive.
I bought a few ex manifolds and cats for several cars from other states and shipped into CA when I worked in the auto industry, it just wasn't cheap.
Because good luck getting a decent ex manifold for a 1968 BMW 2002 or 1991 850i from Bavaria and you will soon be so sticker shocked you will pay whatever it takes to get it state-side, especially since one of those cars is smog-exempt and the dealer is charging you every hour your car is taking up a rack waiting for the RO to be completed.
This is a long standing emissions law thing that predates theft issues.
They want people to drop big coin on something (be that an exhaust system or a vehicle financed at a borderline usury rate from the local BHPH lot) that will be in compliance for awhile rather than slap a used cat on that will barely pass the test and go out of compliance shortly thereafter.
Really wish the cops would download a list of who installed this app and find their location data on top of a map of reported thefts...
Uh... So, I too found the website and couldn't believe how brazen the business is. I too was surprised about the app. If I downloaded the app because I was so surprised, should my name be given to the police as part of this investigation?
That's ridiculous.
An inadvertent customer of a criminal organization is still a customer of a criminal organization.
If you're not dealing in stolen catalytic converters not really sure why you would care if the cops know you downloaded an app for that.
In my country scrapped vehicles are issued a certificate that you can use to reclaim taxes. Maybe manufacturers should start adding unique codes to all parts so you can be sure it comes from a legitimate source.
This would be a massive time unless their goal is to find and harass every small time used car parts dealer.
Thieves don't really care about precise prices on cats. They just know that certain year/make/model ranges are what to go after.
The target market of this app is people who sell used car parts for money and want to know the value of the parts. When you are buying a random car for $500-1k with the intent of selling wheels/tires and a couple other big ticket items before scrapping the car for a couple hundred you care a lot about whether the cat is $200 or $1200 for obvious reasons.
That's one group of thieves selling 38 million worth to them. Later on in the document more groups of thieves are listed, getting paid 13, 45, and 6 million dollars. But that's still not necessarily the whole amount paid to thieves.
Also, it's quite possible that some of their business, and thus sales to refineries was legitimate. None of their partners are listed in the press release as being arrested.
And there are things we could do to make that easier, like putting a serial number on the converter on new cars and replacement parts. Requiring the make, model, and serial number of the car it was removed from, and a web site with a DB that has the ID number of cars they've been stolen from so buyers could check it.
Make those who buy and sell and steal them pay for it. For new car buyers all they be paying for is the addition of the serial number. Can't add much cost to engrave those during production.
Happens with guns.
But that’s why you criminalize the trade of unmarked parts. Actually makes the prosecutor’s job easy that way rather than proving the part was actually stolen and not your retirement cat investment.
So whomever grind the numbers off, may as well cut it open and extract the metals. It puts a major obstacle in the supply chain.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume that entire illegal market could move offshore without a trace.
Unless you're cool with the thefts that are going on, or think any government regulation is "overstepping."
Strawmanning anyone who disagrees with you makes your position look worse.
The other one is welding on the converter. It doesn't make it unstealable; but it's just not a quickie extraction anymore.
If your question is (as it should be), "What about legitimately fixing the converter? Can you still do that?" , I don't know.
So far it has worked. That is either because the vehicle has not been targeted (most likely case) or because the thieves saw who may have targeted it realized that there were easier vehicles to hit parked nearby (not unlikely but certainly less likely).
> Last year approximately 1,600 catalytic converters were reportedly stolen in California each month, and California accounts for 37% of all catalytic converter theft claims nationwide.
> The black-market price for catalytic converters can be above $1,000 each, depending on the type of vehicle and what state it is from.
> Defendants ... operated DG Auto... DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
How did they make $545M in a racket whose upper limit on annual profit is a tenth of that? Perhaps that figure represents DG Auto's gross revenue, only a portion of which comes from recycling converters?
2) 1600 is just the number reported. I’d imagine not many people report the thefts, especially if your car insurance premiums will rise (insurance companies raise premiums even if you don’t make a claim if they have information that suggests your neighborhood or places you frequent are at increased risk of theft)
3) possibly the rate of catalytic converter thefts has risen dramatically in 2022 compared to 2021
> How did they make $545M in a racket whose upper limit on annual profit is a tenth of that? Perhaps that figure represents DG Auto's gross revenue, only a portion of which comes from recycling converters?
Because the converters themselves are only worth $1k each on the black market, but apparently quite a bit more if stripped and processed further, to bare precious metal powders, which are much easier to work with.
It can't be.
/s
This takedown seems to have been possible because there was a central group that was moving hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen goods - maybe even billions if you take "cost to manufacture" instead of "resell value". Why would a bike theft ring that centralized exist?
https://www.kiro7.com/news/bike-rack-chop-shop-growing-trend...
Bay area? i thought i was bad in Socal, I had my Gen 2 Prius siting outside a residential area near a major university town while I was away in EU and had mine stolen. I had to junk a decently running hybrid because of this as Toyota had a shortage of them and since the Prius was designed for the California market without the Toyota stamp on the cat its an instant fail for emissions, even if the ppms are within spec with an aftermarket part: no exceptions!
It's literally the most ironic thing I've experienced and I worked in the auto industry and at VW through Diesel gate!
This is so wide-spread and many good cars just ended up in the scrap yard when it was an easy fix to just allow for temp smog exemption, mine still for 40+mpg with worn batteries and thus exceeded most of what is sold on the market now, but because of regulatory capture and how insurance policy works it was the most expedient albeit wasteful solution--this is what I fear AI will bring about in most cases if left to its own devises and unchecked, too. Some made it to neighboring states without this requirement (OR/AZ/NV/CO) but the issue was logistical because you'd need a temp Cat installed to drive to said state, but in early '21 you could get them for <$1000 and recovered your costs as they soared in value as gas inflation pries kicked in gear.
I actually pitched this as a to a friend who was having his 1st kid at the time, he offered me funding (mid 5 figures) but I couldn't work with him due to the child so I left the idea and took off to EU instead. I had anticipated and projected healthy returns, $2k/unit after expenses, little did I know it would go to $7k+ per unit as I found my sources for the legwork: 49 state legal cats, mechanics to install, and drivers ready to go (mainly me). It's mainly what I had done at VW after all, logistically speaking.
There was a total parallel economy in shield installs, part/chassis swaps and tracking devises etc... because it got worse not better. I attribute a lot of this to the issue wit unemployment payments, and general lack of help for those during covid people got desperate and would probably be foisted into this easier than before.
Yea, they have the most PM of all cars on the road in the US; Toyota over built them as they were to be the California car and as you know many are still on the road as result of this over-engineering despite this high theft issue.
At least you got to keep yours, I bought mine as a salvage buy-back from it's original owner (2008 with only 72k miles) but it had a check engine light on it (p420/bad cat) since the accident.
I had the bare min liability since I was in Europe at the time and I was thinking of putting it on non-op. I installed a new cat in 2018 I bought from Toyota and drove it when I was in CA since I lived in CO most of the year when I lived in the US. I wanted a shield but most had mixed reviews. I left thinking our neighborhood is mainly family's and with so many at home during covid I'd be safe.
Wrong assumption on my part.
> I also had a shield installed after the first time,
Yeah, not all shields are built equally, some you can't even remove from the chassis after they're installed causing an issue with visual inspections and having automatic fails so they put little peek windows on them in later versions/iterations; hence the parallel economy that sprung over 2020-21 after many years of theft as it became so wide-spread, I was on Prius chat quite a lot those years and it was like every couple of hours you'd see a new member with a 'cat stolen' thread.
> Now, I have to garage the car at night by constantly moving home gym equipment, so my life is still somewhat negatively impacted to this day.
Well, you can always sell it, the premiums on them are so good on one in CA you can probably get something else if it's that much of an issue on you since things are likely to remain that way in the Bay Area.
But I'm guessing like most Prius owners, especially after all this ordeal, you will probably keep it until it dies at this point. When did yours get stolen and when was it replaced, most of 2021 Toyota was out of them [0] and did your insurance cover it with full coverage? What does it cost to insure now after this?
I scrapped mine because the tags were due and I couldn't find a cat without a massive premium and ultimately reporting it would increase insurance on all my cars and bikes and that wasn't worth it in the end.
0: https://www.torquenews.com/8113/toyota-prius-catalytic-conve...
There is no way in hell the buyers don't know the volume and source is complete wrong and criminal.
If no-one is buying they won't be stolen.
I sold my defective OEM Prius cat on EBay (I bought it knowing it was broken on my car and installed new in 2018) for parts to test how liquid the market was before I went looking for funding (post above) and doing DD and market research, it was rather easy and someone paid within two hours for the reserve price ($1000+).
Shipping was the biggest headache/cost of the whole process, but the guys on ebay buy Platinum, Platinum, Rhodium are still around.
While I don't deny some larger brokers at work, possibly OEMS, the fact is that everyone was grifting during covid, the stock market and real estate was soaring, corpo America (and the World) was flush wit bailout money etc... This wasn't even a blip on the radar of the billions being made.
Go after the recycling centers that buy these. Fine them into submission. Watch the market dry up.
I removed the exhaust from one of my vehicles about 15 years ago when I replaced the worn out engine and have had the old catalytic converter sitting around in my shop ever since.
The catalytic converter came from a 1992 model vehicle. The whole exhaust was replaced with a custom stainless steel exhaust front to back with a 50-state compliant catalytic converter in line from a well-known California supplier.
I intended to run it by the metal recycler several times but never made it and now that theft is such a huge problem I can see where just showing up with one to sell could be a problem.
I still own and drive the vehicle and could probably dig up documentation for the replacement exhaust system.
I'm glad to see a federal effort to stop these thefts. I had to install a cage around my kid's catalytic converter since there were thefts occurring from vehicles on their college campus.
My Ford was federally licensed rather than CARB, so I'm required to replace it with an OEM converter. There is no ETA on when one will be available.
The conclusion I came to was that if I didn't look shady, the cats still had their mounting flanges on them (not sawed off), and no problem giving the recycling yard my contact info, I'd have no problems.
I wonder if this will make a dent in how often it happens. My niece's was stolen in broad daylight.
Many areas of the country there is no consequences.
And catalytic converter theft is still very common. We are the #2 state on the list of catalytic converter thefts per 100k automobiles[3].
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[1] https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm
[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/gun-ownership-rates-by-stat...
[3] https://www.beenverified.com/data-analysis/catalytic-convert...
Besides, there’s way too much margin for error in vigilante justice. That’s why we have trials, imperfect as even they may be. They’re certainly better than empowering everyone to be judge, jury, and executioner because they thought you might be committing a property crime.
I have medication I need to live. If I don’t take it regularly daily, a clock starts ticking. When the time is up, I die.
When I travel I treat my bags like my life. I recent had nasty run in with an airline that wanted me to check my bags. I refused to get on the plane.
When I took the next flight, my checked baggage didn’t make the connection.
I might have survived if I got to the ER fast enough. But those bags are my life.
In developing countries, petrol means access to medicine, food, etc.
“Property is more important than life” is a luxury belief for the wealthy and healthy.
Generally speaking, no, of course not. But, if someone's breaking into your home in the middle of the night, you don't know what their intentions are to just steal some stuff or to rape and murder your family. There's a reason so many states have castle doctrine and such, and it's because there really are bad people out there.
Have you seen the film "Bicycle Thieves"? If someone's property is his livelihood one can have sympathies for those defending it with extreme measures.
I think the proper solution to this is that car manufacturers should be required to better secure these things. Putting a thousand dollars or more in such an easy to access place, requiring people to have some of their money sitting there like that, might as well tie a bow around it and set it on the hood.
I think the problem is underlying societal collapse rather than consequences.
America is brutal on its poor. I know cause I grew up on food stamps and expired meat in Chemical Valley during the height of Dupont's C8 dumping.
People are soul crushingly desperate, but many don't even know it doesn't have to be this bad.
Many reasons, but chief among them are that EU is oddly really relaxed on emissions (hence diesel gate not being as big of an issue in it's own Country) and don't use the same equipment on their cars also because AU/NZ are big markets for used Japanese export vehicles that have exceeded its Shakin/Km limits in Japan and there isn't the local demand for these components as the laws don't reflect such strict standards.
By contrast those cars are not legal in the US due to emissions, until they fall out of the testing period: see used the massive headache created with the post Motorex Nissan Skyline market by-laws. The UK is odd because MOT and carbon tax things play a part, but it's way easier to register a RHD car from Japan if you're outside of London, and even within it if you know where to go. But both the US and UK also have lots of poverty based crime (theft) underlying their society.
Europe, but especially Germany, has many auto-manufactures writing their laws for them; and the higher ubiquity of diesel cars on the road in those markets as opposed to benzene (gasoline) means they cannot just make them all vanish without having immense backlash. So, they greese the right wheels, and things carry on: business as usual.
I won't touch the other reasons, but if you really want the nitty-gritty of how relaxed EU standards are read: Faster, Higher, Farther.
There is a reason it was some college kids in CA with a home-brew emission tester in a rented Tdi that butsted VW, and not the EU's climate Nazis/Green party in Baden-Wuttenburg. (I lived there and was subject to their stupid vanity based green washing laws as an environmental activist, so I can say that!)
Please go right ahead though, seeing the failures of the punitive system in the US provides an exemplar of why my country should not go down that path.
Theft is heavily correlated with the economy. Arguably it's a canary in the mine - you can very usually tell what's going to happen in the macroeconomics of an area by just following crime statistics.
"Deterrence" has generally been found to be a pretty well-rooted myth. Majority of theft also happens by people who _don't actually know what the consequences are_. So just increasing them doesn't actually help.
If you can show strong evidence that prison is one of the best ways of reducing crime, then sure you've convinced me (and probably plenty others).
I'm interested in learning more. Do you have some good resources you could point me to?
I am glad they caught this ring, of course, but this is not meaningful crimefighting. The only message it sends is: the pole to the top is a bit greasy.
I think this is the law: https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_164.857
Who is creating a market for stolen catalytic converters? Are the precious metals being extracted, melted down and sold? to who and where?
Put THOSE people in jail for the rest of their lives and change the setup so there is in incentive for anyone to even steal one in the first place.
> They knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters and, through a “de-canning” process, extracted the precious metal powders from the catalytic core. DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
I mean, when you're buying refined precious metal powders from inside the US, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where it's coming from.
It's not really reasonable to hold the refinery at fault, they were working with another major business dealing in large numbers.
DG Auto is the right place to hit because they knew they were getting $38 million dollars of cats from 1 family and an unlicensed business (that family is also getting prosecuted).
You wouldn't hold a refinery at fault for smelting down cars they got from a junkyard. They have no reason to suspect the junkyard is sending them stolen goods. Any resell business that deals with individuals is where the pressure belongs.
Ivory, on the other hand, can be assumed to be illegally produced in 99% of the cases. If there are legal ways to even obtain new ivory, it's on the buyer to prove that their source is legal. That's not the case for catalytic cores.
There are legitimate sources for these precious metals, and legitimate uses too. The parallel to ivory doesn't make any sense in that you don't have to kill Elephants to get Rhodium.
This viral video of a catalytic converter thief in Bankstown Australia:
https://www.tiktok.com/@alfa_towing/video/715361999595885696...
Also fuel efficiency, and until very recently, diesel was cheaper than petrol here due to tax reasons. (even regular. Not Ag-diesel)
I'd get an electric car, if they were cheaper/available used. (road tax is based on CO2/km, so an electric one is free.)
In the meantime, I’ll be sticking with my Tesla, thanks.
Also, regenerative braking means you get a lot of power back when you go down the other side of a mountain.
If your converter is stolen, and a police report is filed, that vehicle is now emissions exempt for the rest of its life and can just have a straight pipe installed.
Now there’s a MASSIVE incentive on behalf of the state to solve the converter theft problem.
I obviously don't have any sympathy for these likely criminals, but unless i misunderstand it sounds like people lost their homes (civil asset forfeiture) before being convicted of a crime which I'm not sure is something to brag about.
At the very least, I believe the assets would be returned to them if it turns out they are found not guilty. So they are seized but not gone for good.
Civil forfeiture may be unjust, but it is definitely a product of, and tightly governed by, law.
It is also irrelevant to this case, in which criminal, not civil, forfeiture is sought.
https://www.reddit.com/r/h3h3productions/comments/ul2ar5/tha...
2: why did it take them this long?
Have you seen any videos of people sliding under a Tesla and somehow sawing out the ~800 pound battery pack and walking away?
Much of the reason why catalytic converter theft is so widespread is that it’s quick and easy. Not so for swiping an EV battery.
This is setting aside a larger problem: If you're under a car nabbing a catalytic converter you can quickly cut it loose, grab it, and run. If you're under en EV and manage to break the battery pack loose after several hours work, your remains will be pinned to the ground under that car later when the police come to investigate. People won't be stealing batteries and leaving EVs stranded for the same reason they aren't stealing diesel truck motors and leaving the trucks stranded.
Edit: Love the helpful comments though telling poor people just to move out of the city if their cat gets stolen, as if moving is easy if you can't afford to replace a cat.