Posted on 07/17/2023 6:36:47 AM PDT by grundle
Catalytic converter thieves confronted with paintball guns in Turlock bail on crime
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Real gun would have been better
Should have at least painted their car; make it easier for the cops to identify them.
Thieving scum.
Paintball is great response for thieves. (I'd have 'real gun' on hip in case they're armed)
“Real gun and the home owner ends up in jail”
More than likely....not familiar with California right to deadly force laws there (if there even are any) but where I am you have to be in fear for life or great bodily injury......and this ain’t that.
Catalytic Converters are existential for the life of Mother Erf.
I visited a company in the Boise area last week that recycles autos. They hall most of the scrap cars to OR where they turn them into rebar.
They had a machine that cuts up catalytic converters and extracts the rare earth elements out of them. It also had four vacuum systems to suck up all the dust and blow it in bags. The bags sat inside a 55 gallon drum. They stated when that drum was full it was worth well over $10K. They had 24/7 monitored security in the building.
I asked what the most valuable CC came from. They said the Ford Expedition. It has two. They are both worth $850 each.
I imagine the easiest way to stop this would be to prohibit metal scrap yards from accepting catalytic converters.....that’s who’s buying them is it not?
No demand no theft.
It is worth noting that in Texas, real gun would have been legal, IIRC.
Also another $100 or so to have a security plate screwed up underneath to prevent future theft.
in other good news:
A man was crushed to death while allegedly attempting to steal a catalytic converter from a vehicle at a Savannah, Georgia, car lot, police said.
Officers were called on March 7 after the man, Matthew Eric Smith, 32, was found dead under a car, the Chatham County Police Department said in a release.
“Evidence at the scene indicates that the man was killed while he was illegally removing a catalytic converter from the vehicle, and the vehicle fell on top of him,” the release read.
Catalytic converter theft has skyrocketed around the nation in recent years, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, surging more than 1,200% since 2019.
The converters, which reduce pollution and toxic gas from a vehicle’s emissions, are relatively easy to steal and contain valuable precious metals such as palladium, platinum and rhodium.
Last year, federal, state and local law enforcement carried out a “coordinated takedown” of a multimillion-dollar network of catalytic converter thieves, dealers and processors that led to 21 arrests in five states, the Justice Department said in a November release.
“Some of these precious metals are more valuable per ounce than gold and their value has been increasing in recent years,” the department said. “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. They can be stolen in less than a minute.”
WOW
The company I visited used to buy converters from all around the country even though they were in Idaho. If you wanted to sell them they would send you a box to return it to them.
When they received it, they would pay you for its current value.
They stopped doing this about two years ago when the Federal government got involved. They were concerned that they could come in and impound their entire operation. So, now they will not buy one unless it comes in locally. Typically attached to an automobile.
The car companies need to put a vin number on these same as on the engine block. That way they can trace converters to what vehicle they came from. This would cut down on thefts.
The company also has a machine that strips the casing off of Romex electric cable. It then cuts the copper wire up into little pieces and blows it into bags/bins. The bins are loaded until they hit 4000#. 64000# of copper/bins on a maxi flat bed gets sent to a copper smelter somewhere out in the Pacific NW. Do the math.
YUP!
Imagine when the economy gets really bad.
Exactly. At least some serialized number. It's pathetic that the car manufacturers don't already do it.
While they are under the car, stand over them with a real gun while someone is calling the cops. Tell them if they move they lose their package.
I know
Chaos
I think that was always Obama’s plan
Another reason I don’t like W siding up with him - but it shows who W truly is
Thief takes prybar and determining that car owner only has paintball gun smashes him in head with prybar. Real is better even if you don’t shoot criminal and criminal runs away.
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