Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

justice.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 487 posts

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#241

Post by scarecrowbob »

dylan604 wrote: post #205
Melting_Harps wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if that's related in any way to it also relatively common to straight-pipe in Texas. No emissions, low state taxes, low fuel price, and abysmally little to no self awareness about climate change is a better explanation. FL is still the best way to get around smog stuff in the US because of inherit corruption, you an register anything if you have the money: see Motorex sandal And tis is despite Hawaii being…

>No emissions, Growing up, we used to take the car for a run up/down the highway for a bit to "burn things off" before getting an inspection. There were also places you could go "outside of town" that did not do emissions testings. That was 30 years ago though. I thought all inspections required emissions testing now. Is it still not enforced outside of town? Of course, finding the guy to pay off is always going to b…

It varies by county.

I sold a truck that I couldn't get inspected in Travis county (because of a sensor code that indicated misfires on start) to a buddy up in Lubbock, and it inspected just fine up there.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#242

Post by tadfisher »

catiopatio wrote: post #148
hack_edu wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When did we become so comfortable with the government mandating presentation of papers and tracking of private transactions? After Timothy McVeigh blew up a building with a truck full of agricultural supplies.

How well did that prevent 9/11? The decrease in domestic terrorism is due to societal changes and better old-fashioned policing of home-grown extremist groups. We didn’t somehow make it impossible (or even difficult) to improvise large explosives.

Survivorship bias. You don't know how many plots were prevented by making it difficult to obtain explosive precursors.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#243

Post by SoftTalker »

dylan604 wrote: post #197
MBCook wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s THOUSANDS of pounds. It’s not a trivial operation. It may happen, but it will never be anywhere near as common as cat theft. One is safe, trivial, fast, and pays a lot. The other is extremely difficult, possibly lethal, and can’t easily be melted down for profit like a cat.

As connected as modern EV cars are, stealing one would seem like a dumb decision since they'll know exactly where the car is. I know chop shops are quick, but I still wouldn't want to knowingly bring something with tracking devices into my criminal lair.

They'll figure out how to cut or disable the antenna and/or transmitter pretty quickly.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#244

Post by SoftTalker »

giantg2 wrote: post #202
Test0129 wrote: post #4

This is happening more and more frequently in my locale. Several of my friends and many of my neighbors have had their catalytic converters stolen. It's good to see something is done. Let's hope this steamrolls into a nationwide manhunt for these criminals. They should also consider targeting and auditing shops that buy used car parts. Making it extremely difficult to fence these things will be practical and useful b…

They already have a lot of scrutiny on used catalytic converters. It sounds like this ring might have been smelting the precious scrap.

Yeah it happened to my car like 6 or 8 years ago. I called around to salvage yards to try to buy a used exhaust. I needed basically everything from the manifold back due to where the thief made his cuts. Every yard told me that they aren't allowed to deal in used exhaust systems. I had to buy a new aftermarket exhaust or a new one from the dealer.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#245

Post by SoftTalker »

cogman10 wrote: post #101
grecy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So give the refinery a fine that is 10x their yearly profit, cripple it's leadership and make an "example" out of them. End their business, and make it clear that any metal refinery buying materials that could come from catalytic converters needs to be very, very careful and have extremely good documentation about where it actually comes from. I mean, when you're buying refined precious metal powders from inside the…

DG Auto is a nation wide operation. They aren't sending the contents of the cats over 1 cat at a time. It's not really reasonable to hold the refinery at fault, they were working with another major business dealing in large numbers. DG Auto is the right place to hit because they knew they were getting $38 million dollars of cats from 1 family and an unlicensed business (that family is also getting prosecuted). You wo…

DG Auto out of New Jersey specifically. This is a mafia operation, not hard to connect the dots.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#246

Post by danans »

somerandomqaguy wrote: post #182
kazinator wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally "going out of style". Gotta get all the cat converters you can before all the cars are electric!

I'd expect the charging cables to be the easy target then. EV owners, please correct me if I'm wrong but I can't imagine that the charging port would be able resist a cordless drill for more then 4 or 5 seconds. And from what I've seen of the CCS connectors, Home Depot probably carries big drill bits long enough drill into into and completely destroy the locking mechanism. Drill in, destroy the the charging port on t…

> And from what I've seen of the CCS connectors, Home Depot probably carries big drill bits long enough drill into into and completely destroy the locking mechanism.

> If not, and if the owner does something to lock the cable, cutting it for the copper is still worth a few dollars.

Worth the risk of electrocution with a possibly live 50-350kW flowing through a CCS charger cable? Seems like a different level of risk than a catalytic converter.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#248

Post by danans »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #103
kazinator wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally "going out of style". Gotta get all the cat converters you can before all the cars are electric!

Batteries will get stolen for same reason.

Only when the thieves have robotic exoskeletons.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#249

Post by gmiller123456 »

Test0129 wrote: post #4

This is happening more and more frequently in my locale. Several of my friends and many of my neighbors have had their catalytic converters stolen. It's good to see something is done. Let's hope this steamrolls into a nationwide manhunt for these criminals. They should also consider targeting and auditing shops that buy used car parts. Making it extremely difficult to fence these things will be practical and useful b…

    They should also consider targeting and auditing shops that buy used car parts
In this case they took out the palladium and sold it to a refinery. Also, VINed parts, like airbags, have been found being shipped to countries that don't care about or can't enforce the sale of them.

So, it'd eat into some of the criminal's profits, but probably not enough to significantly reduce theft. So efforts are likely better spent elsewhere.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#250

Post by grogenaut »

Test0129 wrote: post #4

This is happening more and more frequently in my locale. Several of my friends and many of my neighbors have had their catalytic converters stolen. It's good to see something is done. Let's hope this steamrolls into a nationwide manhunt for these criminals. They should also consider targeting and auditing shops that buy used car parts. Making it extremely difficult to fence these things will be practical and useful b…

install a cat shield aka a plate that covers your cat. Mine got stolen, a shield was $350, they totaled the car for over $3500 by taking the cat if I would have fixed it due to fucking up the exhaust pipes and o2 sensor.
Post reply on HN