Actually that’s something I wondered about also.
Did the factory never once wonder why large shipments of (possibly) like new cats were arriving from California?
Too often these business owners escape responsibility…reminds me of something else illegal (illegal aliens working for companies).
I deal with a trucking company out of Idaho. Their main business is scrap though. They own junk yards in Idaho.
They have various scrap business. Steel, copper, aluminum, etc. They also have dozens of semis and maxi flatbeds I contract for hauling lumber.
A couple years ago during a visit they showed me the warehouse where they recycle catalytic converters. They cut them apart remove the rare earth elements and separate the materials. The machine also vacuums up all the dust. A 55 gallon drum/barrel I was told was worth $12,000.
They would buy CC from all over the country. They had a website where they would send you a packing slip and you could UPS/FedEx the CC to them and then they would pay you.
Then he said the FBI got involved in tracking these CC around the country. Apparently, they were a pretty big buyer of volume. They stopped buying them unless you provided the VIN# to go along with it. They were afraid that they would be raided by the FBI and all their inventory would get seized.
FYI, he told me that the most valuable CC came from a Ford Expedition. It has two and they were worth $650 each scrap value. He also said that it took about two minutes to cut them out with a battery operated sawsall.
They also have a machine that removed the casing off of Romex wire and chopped the copper up into little pieces and blew that copper into a bin. The bins were 4000 pounds each.
They put 64M# on a flatbed going to a smelter in OR. Copper is worth between $3.50-4/pound. Do the math of what one truckload is worth. There is a lot of money in scrap.