States Turn to Anti-Meth Strategies to Battle Converter Theft

A car’s catalytic converter is probably pretty low on the list of things most people think about when managing their hectic schedules. But these days the otherwise anonymous car part is all over the news.

“Catalytic converter thieves continue to strike despite cold, snow, Pa. police warn,” read a recent headline in The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

“Police struggle to deter rising catalytic converter thefts,” said the ABC News website.

“Catalytic converter thefts skyrocketed in 2021, and Springfieldians are paying the price,” wrote the Springfield News-Leader in Springfield, Missouri.

“Cops, businesses team up with residents to prevent, prosecute catalytic converter thefts,” the Los Angeles Times said.

Nationwide, the theft of the exhaust emission control devices has skyrocketed as the value of the precious metals contained within them has shot up over the past two years.

Savvy thieves can make as much as $300 selling catalytic converters to scrap yards, which, in turn, sell them to recyclers who want the platinum, palladium and rhodium inside.

Victims of catalytic converter theft can often expect to pay more than $1,000 replacing the part, which can take days or weeks to be delivered. In the meantime, their vehicle is for most purposes legally undrivable (although it still can technically move from Point A to Point B).

According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, claims of catalytic converter theft rose from 3,389 in 2019 to 14,433 in 2020.

“As the value of the precious metals contained within the catalytic converters continues to increase, so do the number of thefts of these devices,” NICB President David Glawe said in a statement, noting that thefts have been on the rise since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There is a clear connection between times of crisis, limited resources, and disruption of the supply chain that drives investors towards these precious metals,” he said.

Indeed, according to Kitco.com, a website that tracks the price of precious metals, Rhodium was selling for $2,300 an ounce in January 2019. Now sellers are asking for $17,650.00 an ounce.

Catalytic Converter Theft Hits Home

Anastasia Panagakos and her husband were recent victims of catalytic converter theft – twice, on the same car.

She and her husband and their two teenage children live in the Northern California college town of Davis. For years, they’ve parked their second car, a 2006 Honda Accord, in their driveway overnight. Their neighborhood is well lit. They never thought of it as unsafe until they woke up one morning in mid-October and went to start the car.

“We walked out and I was like, ‘Why are these bolts on the ground?’” Panagakos said.

Thieves had torn up the underside of their Honda to steal its catalytic converter. Panagakos and her husband drove the car to a local Honda dealership, where it took three weeks to order and install the new part. Thankfully for them, their out of pocket cost was only the $500 deductible – the full repair cost was almost $6,000.

“The service guy said, ‘This is the fourth one we’ve seen this month in Davis,’” Panagakos said.

She said they asked the dealership if there was anything it could do to prevent a future theft. The dealer told her to check with other auto shops.

Panagakos said she and her husband made some phone calls but got the run around. Then, on Thanksgiving morning, they discovered their Honda had been hit again.

Once more, they had to take their car to the dealership, costing them another $500 deductible.

Now Panagakos and her husband are parking their Honda in their garage.

“And yes,” she added, “eventually I’ll look into getting a cat cap on there.”

Catalytic Converter Theft Creating Niche Prevention Market

The difficulties Panagakos and her husband encountered have given rise to a niche industry to block catalytic converter thieves.

Some auto shops have started installing steel boxes or custom-built cages around catalytic converters. The service is especially enticing to fleet managers, who might have a half a dozen or more delivery vehicles parked in the same place overnight, making them a particularly alluring target for thieves.

But regular folks are investing in these barriers as well. After a number of such thefts in his own neighborhood, SNCJ managing editor Rich Ehisen has had them installed on both of his cars, to the tune of about $200.

“It seemed like it was only a matter of time before we got hit too,” he said.

Manufacturers have also started rolling out new products especially designed to foil catalytic converter thieves. These products, with names like CatClamp, CatStrap, Cateye, Cat Shield and Cat Security promise to stop thieves by encircling your vehicle's catalytic converter in wire rope, a high-temperature warning strap or a robust metal plate or by attaching a motion detector near your catalytic converter.

The CatStrap, which combines airplane-grade stainless steel cables and a motion sensor alarm, was designed by a family business in Whitehouse, Ohio that is growing rapidly, thanks to the persistence of catalytic converter thieves. At the moment, a lot of their business is coming from companies with fleets of cars and other vehicles.

“The very first of this year, it just exploded beyond, I mean we’re probably selling a thousand percent more,” CatStrap creator Tom Birsen recently told the Toledo, Ohio CBS affiliate WTOL.

States Hit Back at Converter Thieves 

Many of the legislative strategies being employed to combat catalytic converter theft mirror those previously used to stem the theft of copper, aluminum and other metals as well as pseudoephedrine, a decongestant used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine.

In 2021, 10 states, including Arkansas, South Carolina and Texas, enacted legislation requiring scrap metal buyers of used catalytic converters to maintain records of their purchases, including the sellers home address and driver’s license number.

That same strategy was employed in 2009 when copper wire theft was on the rise. Twenty-five states introduced scrap metal legislation that gave law enforcement greater access to dealer’s purchase recorders and/or created new penalties for both metal theft and purchasing stolen metal.

These laws proved so effective at discouraging metal thieves that some form of them was enacted in 49 states by 2014.

In a similar vein, President George W. Bush in March 2006 signed into law a ban on the over-the-counter sale of cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine. The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 to this day limits the sale of products containing pseudoephedrine to behind the counter.

The law also limits the amount of pseudoephedrine products an individual can purchase per month and requires them to show a photo ID when doing so.

States across the country are taking a similar tack with catalytic converter theft, toughening penalties for the crime itself and establishing new requirements for scrap metal dealers that buy catalytic converters.

Similar bills have been introduced in several states this session, including Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Oklahoma and New Jersey.

For theft victims like Panagakos, they can’t move fast enough.

“I think it’s a priority,” she said. “I would like to see laws that make it a stricter penalty or fine for people who do this.”

--By SNCJ Correspondent BRIAN JOSEPH

Most States Taking Action to Curb Catalytic Converter Theft

Legislation aimed at reducing catalytic converter theft has been introduced or considered in at least 33 states in the 2021-22 biennium, according to State Net’s legislative tracking system. Seven of those states have enacted such measures.