Catalytic Converter Stolen

[Chatt69chgr]

Had the damnest thing happen last friday night.  Someone used a sawzall to cut out the converter on my son's 97 Nissan pickup.  He had left it parked in a grocery store parking lot after they were closed.  We called Midas and they were able to replace it the next morning for approx. $200.  Said they had 5 calls already for the same thing.  Obviously, someone got a Harbor Freight sawzall for Christmas and decided to put it to use.  We were told that these converters are bringing $50-$100 at the junkyard.  They have also been stealing peoples house HVAC units here---for the copper and aluminum.  I think as the economy worsens we are going to see a lot more of this stuff.  Plus, if gas gets any higher, I figure the ice pick/dishpan boys will start hitting again.  It's a war out there.   

[sick dawg]

I don't know where you live, but this has been a problem in my area for quite a while. The thieves like four wheel drive trucks best because they are easy to get under. They also like big apartment building parking lots where two or three of them working together can get a dozen or so in a few minuets and get out quick. I stopped these two suspicious characters one night and they had two battery powered sawszall and eight cats under a blanket in their back seat. On a few that I wrote up it cost the people up to six hundred dollars to get them replaced.
Remember depending how much they cut, sometimes more than the cat has to be replaced. This is in the metropolitan Washington D.C. area.

[Brock Samson]

this is a growing problem, they busted up a ring here a few days back... a couple links..

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/11/MNGGUD2FV.DTL&hw=converters&sn=005&sc=954

http://www.allpar.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=99585

   sucks... 

[70charginglizard]

This is one of the reasons why I never leave any of my vehilces outside during the night or park it anywhere where it's not in public view.

That really sucks and I too have heard about this but the only thing you can do is what I've said above and hope for the best.

[DodgeByDave]

I caught a trio of these clowns last summer, held them at gunpoint until the police arrived. They are doing time now.

All of the scrap metals are up in price, due in part to the chinese demand for base resources.

Bah, don't blame the economy. The thief chose to steal. It's lack of moral upbringing that brings people to steal.

These boys are damn lucky this wasn't out in the country, I would have gone to the "shoot, shovel and shut up" playbook.

aluminum, be thou gold!

[SFRT]

Tweakers with Sawzalls are the new zombie plague.

[Todd Wilson]

I cashed in an old cat  2 years ago and got 20$ for it.


Another wild thing thats being done. Huffing freon out of air conditioners.   My mom had this happen to her. They were out on the side of her house pushing the shrader valve huffing freon to get high. Ran her unit out of freon and then ran off. They got caught but thats about all that happened. She got a big fat bill from the heating and air outfit to recharge.


Todd

[Todd Wilson]

These boys are damn lucky this wasn't out in the country, I would have gone to the "shoot, shovel and shut up" playbook.

aluminum, be thou gold!

More of that needs to happen!


Todd

[1969chargerrtse]

   I can't beleive what I'm reading.  This is amazing and then to hear it's not only been going on for a while, but all over even blows my mind more.  Never heard any of this from the cow town I live in.

[terrible one]

My buddy had someone crawl under his house and cut out all the copper pipe, obviously to sell for scrap. 

[Charger_Fan]

We were told that these converters are bringing $50-$100 at the junkyard.     

Porbably not the junk yard, the metal recycling yard. Around here, the boneyards absolutely will NOT sell or buy cats...big signs in the offices.
The cats have a small quantities of valuable metals required to make them & the price is going up.

I found THIS ARTICLE while refreshing my memory on which metals are contained in cats.
"Catalytic converters contain expensive precious metals like platinum - which is worth up to $1,200 an ounce; palladium, which can fetch $320 an ounce and rhodium, the biggest prize of all. It goes for up to $6,000 an ounce on the market."



I also found this CAT CLAMP while looking too.   That's pretty friggin' sad if it's getting to the point where people have to lock up their catalytic converters.

[Charger1973]

Just another reason to keep a gun

[Chargen69]

or 2

[472 R/T SE]

One of them got inside a sub station to try and steal copper.  Someone driving by seen smoke and stopped, by then he was a crispy critter. 

The cats being stolen is making the paper here as well.  Construction sites are getting hit too.

[greenpigs]

I can't stand junkies\thieves that feel they are entitled to take what they want, because life is so hard for them. This was news to me on stealing converters but a guy at work had to have his freon charged as some losers huffed it all up at his vacation house.

[A383Wing]

It's a growing concern.....and it's happening more & more......they are ripping out the phone wires from the boxes out here. Thieves are also going into unfinished houses and stripping them before the interior walls are in place.

Sounds like a good idea to either get a guard dog & chain it up to yer car, or "electrify" the vehicle when you leave it for the night.

Bryan

[Chad L. Magee]

The problem iis only going to get worse this year.  Check out www.kitco.com to see the metal prices currently.  Rhodium is almost $7,000 an oz. ( ) and platinum is above $1500 an oz (again  ).  All of the metals are going up due to outside demand from developing countries and a weak dollar......

[bull]

The problem iis only going to get worse this year.  Check out www.kitco.com to see the metal prices currently.  Rhodium is almost $7,000 an oz. ( ) and platinum is above $1500 an oz (again  ).  All of the metals are going up due to outside demand from developing countries and a weak dollar......

Hmmm. If I pay $100 for a cordless Sawzall and get 15 cats a night, that's a lot of Charger money.

Just wondering though, what companies out there actually go through the hassle to recycle precious metal from converters? Shoot, if I can get a couple thousand bucks out of one cat I should be scrapping used cars for extra money.

[squeakfinder]

I'm glad I live out in the country, where things like rifled slugs double ot and lead worms take care of these problems.....

[Chad L. Magee]

The problem iis only going to get worse this year.  Check out www.kitco.com to see the metal prices currently.  Rhodium is almost $7,000 an oz. ( ) and platinum is above $1500 an oz (again  ).  All of the metals are going up due to outside demand from developing countries and a weak dollar......

Hmmm. If I pay $100 for a cordless Sawzall and get 15 cats a night, that's a lot of Charger money.

Just wondering though, what companies out there actually go through the hassle to recycle precious metal from converters? Shoot, if I can get a couple thousand bucks out of one cat I should be scrapping used cars for extra money.

Bull- the problem is that there is only a small amount of platinum (think size of a dime) and even smaller amount of rhodium (think pin head size) in each catalytic converter.  So, some cats are worth a couple of hundred now, but not yet thousands of $s.  The metals are deposited as fine particulates in a honeycomb mesh of other materials.  Smelters usually just burn the material and the metals are collected from the leftovers in the melting pot.  The reason why rhodium is so much higher than platinum is because it has a better catalytic ability than platinum in certain industrial compounds so the demand is pushed up by that.  A decade or so ago, you could have bought all of the rhodium metal that you wanted for $200 an oz. (I wish I had bought more than I did)........

[Manfred318]

Its been amking the news paper around here as well. Cats are bringing $75 each at the recycling center a few miles away. People are also stealing junk cars left and right around here and taking them to the crusher. They are bringing $350 or so. There has also been a few junk school buses stolen too. From what Ive heard the buses are bringing upwards of $1000 each.

[moparstuart]

 converters  are good money if i can buy a wrecked old car for 100.00 here . I can generally get the money back out of the car by selling the converter or coverters on imports .   

[Brock Samson]

i remember there was a racket stealing airbags out of cars not too long ago,.. that still a concern?.. When i was looking to buy my chysler i was warned to make sure it had them intact, cause some folks bought used cars without airbags and didn't know it...

[andy74]

I received an e mail from the syracuse and rochester auto dealer association about cats being stolen off car lots,guess quiet a few dissapered in the cities,thats why its good to be in the country with a trooper barracks across the street!

[The70RT]

I have some new ones that I got at an auction a few years ago. Is it the honeycomb ones or the ones with beads bringing the most?

[moparstuart]

I have some new ones that I got at an auction a few years ago. Is it the honeycomb ones or the ones with beads bringing the most?

beads mostly they have titanuim and or some have platiumn in them  expensive stuff 
  most new- 4 year old air bag are worth decent money .

[PocketThunder]

Dont worry when we are all driving hydro-electric cars in the near future we wont have a cat to steal!   

[moparstuart]

Dont worry when we are all driving hydro-electric cars in the near future we wont have a cat to steal!   

expensive water catcher maybe ?

[The70RT]

If we do change over to electric then they will steal the car and yank the electric motor(s). If you think copper products are high now......

[BigBlackDodge]

 


I can't believe nobody used that smiley in this topic!



BBD

[sick dawg]

Around little Mexico , out in the burbs and rural areas they are climbing the power poles and cutting down the neutral wire between spans for the copper.  I 'm  just waiting to run a theft for the power co. one night and find a fried tweaker out there. In the mean time it causes all kinds of electrical problems for the bill paying citizens.  little Mexico ( Prince Georges County MD )

[chgr500]

Friend at work lost his cat over this last weekend... ..Vancouver Canada

[RoscoePColtrain]

This issue was on the news here in Toronto last night.  Some guy hit a Kia dealership and made off with 5 cats in 15 minutes, he just cut them off.  They said that there is about $50.00 worth of platinum in each cat.

[The70RT]

This issue was on the news here in Toronto last night.  Some guy hit a Kia dealership and made off with 5 cats in 15 minutes, he just cut them off.  They said that there is about $50.00 worth of platinum in each cat.

Some used cats go for over 100 bucks on ebay and there is over 2000 last time I checked! Here is an example. And I thought gold was on the rise.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Scrap-Catalytic-Converter-Platinum-exotic-foreign-MB2_W0QQitemZ350012118761QQihZ022QQcategoryZ29402QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[moparstuart]

This issue was on the news here in Toronto last night.  Some guy hit a Kia dealership and made off with 5 cats in 15 minutes, he just cut them off.  They said that there is about $50.00 worth of platinum in each cat.

Some used cats go for over 100 bucks on ebay and there is over 2000 last time I checked! Here is an example. And I thought gold was on the rise.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Scrap-Catalytic-Converter-Platinum-exotic-foreign-MB2_W0QQitemZ350012118761QQihZ022QQcategoryZ29402QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

they are salvage yard gold , and i guess 5 finger saws all discount gold also !!!!!!!!

[BrianShaughnessy]

I remember late 70's/ early '80's we'd take cats off and put on a "test pipe" and throw the dumb thing in a dumpster to get rid of the evidence.

[moparstuart]

I remember late 70's/ early '80's we'd take cats off and put on a "test pipe" and throw the dumb thing in a dumpster to get rid of the evidence.

they make it hard to do that today with oxygen sensors

[JimShine]

A big problem around this area is people stealing parts from central air conditioning units for scrap. The scrappers are making tons of money from these thefts. They give the crooks pennies on the dollar for this stuff and look the other way.

Here was a big theft that happened in Portland Maine.

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=154361&ac=PHnws

Theft of copper wiring leaves path in the dark
The culprits, who took 21,000 feet of wire from the East End, left little evidence of their crime.

By DAVID HENCH Staff Writer

December 11, 2007


The theft of more than 10 tons of copper wire from lights along Portland's East End walkway could leave the ocean-side path unlighted for months as city workers try to repair damage worth more than $60,000.
"Whoever did it was quite professional," said Bob Leeman, Portland's director of public buildings. "They went through the process of putting the cover plates back on the light poles. They didn't leave any evidence they were there, except the wire was missing."

Last week's discovery was the latest in a surge of thefts targeting copper, which is fetching about $2 per pound from scrap dealers. The price of the industrial metal has jumped 400 percent in the past five years.

Houses slated for demolition, construction sites and even high- voltage electrical substations have been burglarized. Other metal items also have been stolen, including bronze flagpoles and exhaust systems' catalytic converters, which contain tiny amounts of platinum.

Last month, thieves broke into the construction site for the new Mercy Hospital in Portland and bypassed expensive power tools in favor of copper pipe. The thieves cut the pipe into 4-foot lengths to make it easier to load, said police Lt. Tony Ward.

The three-strand wire in the lights along the East End walkway is as big around as a finger and weighs about a pound per foot. The distance between lights can be almost 100 feet, and about 40 light poles were affected.

The thieves apparently opened junction boxes on the lights, snipped the wires and pulled them out.

The East End path gets heavy foot traffic, most of it during the day. Leeman said he would not be surprised if someone saw the thieves and thought they were just workers.

"They either had some special equipment, or some pretty rugged guys. I would guess they had the right equipment," he said, which would have included gear for spooling the wire. "People who pull electrical wire for a living would have the right equipment."

The theft was discovered by city workers who showed up Friday morning to work on lights to the east of Cutter Street. The thieves had taken about 2,100 feet of wire there and stopped short of an area that might have been covered by security cameras.

When the city started investigating, workers found that wire was missing from poles running west from Cutter Street to Tukey's Bridge, beneath the bridge and over to Back Cove. City officials estimate that a total of 21,000 feet of wire was stolen, Leeman said.

The thefts had gone unnoticed because lights were being worked on and power to at least a stretch of them had been shut down, said Leeman.

Some of the areas closer to Back Cove did have power. Leeman cannot say why the theft, or at least the lack of lighting, was not reported earlier.

Workers can't pinpoint the time of the theft, but the wires are tarnished where they were cut, suggesting that some time has passed, he said.

Fixing the lights might take more than money. The city will have to thread a new line through an underground conduit, using a Styrofoam ball with string attached, which is drawn through by a vacuum. If ice has infiltrated the conduit, that method won't work.

"We may be without lights until next spring," Leeman said.

Catching the thieves could be a challenge. Legitimate scrap copper can be hard to differentiate from stolen copper. Thieves may try to sell it out of state or sell it in small batches so they won't arouse suspicion, Ward said.

With 21,000 feet of copper wire, he said, "I would think you would raise some suspicions."

[The70RT]

Last summer thieves were steeling copper wire that runs the huge water sprinklers you see farmers have in their fields. They now are coming up with a cell phone notification if the circuit is interupted the owner gets an email and then he can go to the field and shoot the bastards.

[moparstuart]

Last summer thieves were steeling copper wire that runs the huge water sprinklers you see farmers have in their fields. They now are coming up with a cell phone notification if the circuit is interupted the owner gets an email and then he can go to the field and shoot the bastards.

GREAT PLAN

[Charger_Fan]

Last summer thieves were steeling copper wire that runs the huge water sprinklers you see farmers have in their fields. They now are coming up with a cell phone notification if the circuit is interupted the owner gets an email and then he can go to the field and shoot the bastards.

GREAT PLAN

Now they just automatic need laser guided gatling guns, so the farmer doesn't even need to leave the barn.

[Brock Samson]

and in Copper Theft news:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/NewsStory.aspx?story=49125
Two New Hampshire men were buried this week after they were electrocuted while taking copper wire from an unoccupied power plant in Tyngsboro, Mass.
The bodies were found lying alongside bolt cutters and coils of copper wire,
Their deaths followed the electrocution fatalities in Arkansas of two people attempting to strip copper wire from utility poles. The problem has gotten so out of hand that the Arkansas government has passed three bills that crack down on the theft of scrap metal.
The price of copper has rocketed in recent months, driven primarily by demand from China. Copper prices increased 14 percent in March to US$3.16 a pound, the highest level since early December.
China has acknowledged the human dangers of illegal copper acquisition. Chungcheng Fan, vice director at the China Institute of Communications told a crowd of communications experts in March that China would most likely use the Ethernet version of passive optical network technology, or EPON, in rural areas because "the problem of stealing copper wire is too great to further expand copper-based access."

    and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6144464.stm
  Hundreds of trains in Rome and Turin have been delayed for at least 30 minutes as signalling equipment and safety devices have become disabled.
Italy's railway operator says that some 250,000 commuters have been affected. The price of copper has tripled in the past three years, making it an attractive commodity for thieves.
Usually operating at night, they have been tearing up miles of copper wire running along rail tracks.
The wire is used to carry information for automatic signalling and safety equipment.
China shipment:Police say they have arrested 22 people in the past month alone on charges of stealing copper wire.
Many of the accused have been identified as Romanian immigrants.
Near Turin, police discovered a clandestine factory allegedly used for recycling the metal ready for export.
The copper is being sold mainly to China.
In Naples, police recently seized dozens of sea containers filled with stolen copper coils parked in the port area ready for shipment to China.
The copper thieves have also been stealing copper cables belonging to the Italian electricity company Enel and stored at building sites.
  and in Canada:
http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=29c1c95e-2704-47f9-9487-2b7b08de4a2b

      We had a local ring busted here today in Richmond Calif. after a one year investigation, the news isn't on line yet..

[Charger_Fan]

We had a local ring busted here today in Richmond Calif. after a one year investigation, the news isn't on line yet..

Heard about that on the radio this morning.