Stinking thieves

[g5m]

There was a group of two men and a woman around here taking them out of cars in parking lots. Police finally caught them. They were selling them for about $150 and replacement costs for the car owner ran $1500-$2000. Apparently when you're an experienced thief you can remove them in about a minute.

 

[Dave P.]

I know I've posted this before to a similar thread. We came out of a late game at a local rink and caught a guy stealing the cat off a teammate's truck.
I'm sure he regretted his choice for at least a month or so. About a third of a hockey team ( with sticks! ) surrounding the truck you've crawled under
is not a good place to be, he was dinged up up bit by the time the local cops and a couple of Michigan State troopers came to rescue him.
Basically any time he tried to escape he was "restrained". Cops found a bunch of cats in his vehicle. He did a plea to something and none of us even had
to go to court for a trial, nothing was ever said about his injuries.

 

[Teddydogno1]

What I have heard from auto guys is that they cats are loaded into containers and shipped overseas. There they are broken down for the rare metals they contain (platinum, rhodium, etc.). Local junk yards are usually not involved, these days.

Rob

 

[harley08]

I hope your son's insurance covers this.

If a thief would work as hard at a real job as they do stealing,, they'd be miles ahead of things. But sadly, they often want the "quick buck" without actually being a responsible person. Steal something, and loaf until they find another item to steal.

Worthless O2 thieves. They should be seriously prosecuted when caught, so others might not want to be so inclined. Severe punishment has always been an effective deterrent to many who MIGHT have thought about committing a crime.
Not perfect,, but very effective.
Nowadays,, the lack of fear of prosecution etc causes a lot of thugs to say; "Hey, easy quick money & I ain't gonna get punished."

I grew up hearing stories about how a thief in Turkey, when caught, would get his dominant hand, (usually the right hand) cut off. That meant he had to eat and wipe with just one hand. Plus, it let the public know he was or had been a thief. I always thought about how effective that had to have been.

They should also cut of his nuts!

 

[bowserb]

These two got theirs.

Did they? Looks like they got pointed at but not shot. But what if they did? That seems risky to me. The thieves might have been armed and shot back with real bullets. An off duty policeman in Houston caught converter thieves and was shot and killed by the thieves. Also clear from the video is that full size SUVs may be easier targets, since their high ground clearance allowed the crooks in the video to work without raising the vehicle. Also in the video the SUV was parked in the driveway. We park our cars in our garage at least limiting access to them by thieves when we're at home.

One other consideration. Leaving a car on the side of the road overnight seems like asking for trouble. If you can't always risk getting dirty with a tire change, consider getting AAA. Note I'm not defending the perps. My first choice would be the thieves caught, then shot dead when they pointed a gun at the police.

BTW, these thieves area really LOSERS. It took two men plus a getaway driver and a car. How much is a cat converter worth? What's the effective hourly rate of pay, and consider they could be arrested or shot by a car owner.

 

[mexicanjoe]

Hook up a 10 mile electric fence charger to the vehicle, sparks will fly !

 

[jimbo1096]

Had two vehicles parked at the front of my house on the street, my Dodge truck and a Tahoe that was my daughters. Both had their catalytic converter stolen. Police reports made and there was a saws-all blade found under the Tahoe. Cop didn't even bother with it. There was one person found that was linked to a series of these thefts but he was back out after a month. Never was Sure if he was responsible for mine or not.

 

[Joe Chartreuse]

Too bad the car didn't fall off the jack.

Cordless tools make it easy to cut converters or anything else off. They have made it impossible to lock anything.

The worst part it cost $2000 to fix what they did and they get $100 for it.

Depends on the converter. The part that's valuable is, of course, the platinum. Some converters have a whole lot more than others. Also- and this is the reason these crimes faded for awhile- the platinum market currently sucks. Platinum used to be half again or more valuable than gold. Now it's less than half the value, which is ridiculous because it is about 50 times rarer and has 20 times the uses. If you buy an ounce of platinum today you have to wait until the market goes up a hundred or two before you can sell it just to break even. Market manipulation at it's finest.
BTW, the amount of platinum range in in converters is around 3-7 GRAMS. Today's market is at $29.53 per gram, making the market value of the theft between $88.59 to 206.71. But that is market value. They won't actually get more than around 80% of that. I don't see it as worth the work unless done in bulk.

 

[AZcigarman]

What in the world is the market for the converters? I am in Florida and the catalytic converter thing went away 25 years ago. I put 265,000 miles on a Toyota truck and it never needed even a muffler much less a converter. What is driving the market in PA????

Serious question seeking serious answer. We get northerners here every year and the ones from PA talk of converter thefts. Why there but not here???

They don't use the converters, they open them and take out the rare metals like platinum, rhodium and palladium that act to break down chemicals that pollute in the exhaust. Since the metals "catalyze" the chemical process (thence the name) they do not break down and so even old cats are worth $$.

 

[daka]

IDK. Once you chopped the first one off the rest would smarten up.

It wouldn't take more than a few to GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS

 

[bobski]

if theyre grown up, its too late. off with the hand.

 

[clintsfolly]

last Sunday someone broke my wife's car window and then beat the crap out of the steering column! For their trouble they got a charging cord, handful of change and half a roll of SweetTarts! We got about a $1800-2000 bill. Did I tell I support the death penalty to be done at the soonest time possibe. In this case in the car And I would donate the bullet.