Vincent Parks (left) and Marzel Woodard are seen with a photo of the catalytic converters by CPD. | Chicago Police Department
Posted on 07/01/2023 4:30:00 AM PDT by george76
Chicago police arrested two men and recovered over 200 catalytic converters from a building on the city’s West Side on Friday.
More details about the allegations against the men will be released when they appear in bond court on Saturday afternoon.
Marzel Woodard and Vincent Parks, both 36, are charged with aggravated possession of a stolen motor vehicle. Woodard is also charged with organized aggravated vehicle theft conspiracy, police said.
Possessing a stolen critical piece of an automobile, such as a catalytic converter, is equivalent to having the entire vehicle under Illinois law.
The arrests and recovery, made in the 4500 block of West North Avenue, were part of an ongoing investigation by the Major Auto Thefts Investigations Unit.
In addition to finding hundreds of catalytic converters, police allegedly found equipment commonly used to steal the devices from vehicles, police said.
The ME’s method of dealing with thieves on the spot suddenly doesn’t seem so barbaric after all...
BTTT
Stealing these days are a form of want and need according to the pukes elected, no charges just a slap
Getting under some of the taller vehicles with a sawzall, one can be under and out in less than a minute.
Interesting how possessing the converter in Illinois constititutes possessing the whole vehicle.
We used to hang horse thieves summarily.
Horse thievery no longer punishable the old-fashioned way.
“Possessing a stolen critical piece of an automobile, such as a catalytic converter, is equivalent to having the entire vehicle under Illinois law.”
That’s actually a GREAT WAY to fight this crap, and bypasses the idiotic idea that everyone should be free to steal up to $950 or so, as long as they don’t exceed that number.
I believe that, in the near future, vigilantism will be the only justice left to us.. Law enforcement and the courts are breaking down. Soon, it will be us against them..
I like prison farms. You actually WORK for room and board. And every prison should have education in basic skills...reading, writing, arithmatic.
“Catalytic converter thieves can see returns of around $150 to $1500 for a catalytic converter, depending on the type of catalytic converter”
So 200 converters = $30,000 TO $300,000.
I’m fine with that punishment for grand theft auto, following due process.
They have differing amounts of platinum in them.
Guy on YouTube cut a catalytic converter open and melted down the platinum. Turns out after removing all the impurities there is barely an 1/8 of an ounce of platinum in each converter. For all the effort and risk it sure doesn’t seem like a very profitable scheme. You need to steal 8 or 9 catalytic converters to get one once of platinum at about $1,200 an ounce.
This problem is very similar to the horse thief problem. Even though this is a more modern time, could the cure for the problem be similar?
The problem that really needs to be solved is the price of platinum and/or the use of it in an automotive application. I see no real need for the use of such a ludicrously expensive component to solve such a minor problem on a modern automobile. Replacing a catalyst on an older car can cost more than the car is worth, yet salvage value on such a vehicle is less than the converter costs. Something really wrong in this situation.
The platinum in one converter comes out to about $162 according to my figures. Buy new one & see what it costs. What do they pay for salvage?
We had a huge problem like this in our neighborhood.
Finally, they arrested and put in jail few people, and the problem went away!
Simple solution!
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