When I hear about these stories, I always wonder what regulations scrap resellers have to abide by. I would think that simple recordkeeping regulations (who brought in how much scrap metal of what type) would dry up the ability of criminals to cash in stolen goods. If someone makes their living picking through trash, they won’t likely be showing up at the end of each month with two dozen catalytic converters.
I buy and sell cars.. Sometimes I buy junkers and pull the cats and a few other high dollar metal items (radiator and the such) before hauling whats left across a scale for 150-200 a ton..
I once brought in 25 converters to the buyer. You better believe they had questions. TONS of them. Where did they come from, how did I get the car, do you have ID? at 200+ dollars each, they do add up quickly.
Once they where satisfied they came off cars I had ownership of, they cut a check made out exactly to the name and address on my drivers license. They filmed the whole thing with surveillance cameras.
oh.. and some a$$hole stole the one off my van a few weeks back. Jokes on him though, it plugged a week or two before and I knocked the guts out.
There is almost no documentation or accountability when they buy metals.