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Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

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Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#371

Post by dsfyu404ed »

humanistbot wrote: post #61
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. Making it extremely difficult to fence these things will be practical and useful because they aren't sold and reused as is California just passed a law to this end, which is pretty straightforward and effectively turns the grey market into a black market. A black market will still exist, but it will be a lot harder for legitimate junkya…

This is a dumb law. It treats the symptom not the problem. There is an existing market for getting around KYC requirements. Just search "buying cats" on FB or CL and you will find plenty of them. These people buy cats from the thieves who are too known to the local yards to deal directly with them and pocket a fraction of the profit. You can keep adding laws but the material here is so valuable that the market can support a lot more middle men if that's what it takes to give everyone plausible deniability.

The fundamental problem here is that pretty much every car has a fairly unsecured cat underneath it and that law enforcement DGAF. The problem will persist until you fix one of those two.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#372

Post by mschuster91 »

scottdevries wrote: post #11

I wonder if the same amount of resources will be used to take down the Nationwide Bicycle Theft Ring as well.

There's no need for a nation-wide ring with bikes. With cats, it is because you need connections to a refinery that will accept your stolen cats... but bikes can be fenced locally in a bike store.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#373

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Symbiote wrote: post #339
catiopatio wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It basically mandates KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures for companies that buy or sell catalytic converters, and it makes buying or selling a catalytic converter without documentation that it was obtained legally a crime. This is worse than the original problem. When did we become so comfortable with the government mandating presentation of papers and tracking of private transactions? Effective, privacy-preservin…

Let's up the ante and see where you stand. In Britain, criminals were stealing the thick, copper cables used for power and signaling of the railway. They wrapped a chain around cables near a road crossing, attached it to a truck, and dragged a significant length of cable away, to sell as scrap. That naturally means the railway can't be used for many hours, occasionally over a day, and costs a tremendous about to repa…

>About 10 years ago, a law was introduced forbidding scrap metal dealers from paying cash, and requiring them to check ID. That led to a 30% drop in theft.

My ass it did. I've worked in the metal recycling industry.

Getting payment in some form other than cash doesn't deter people who were already willing to commit a crime. They have a buddy scrap it and the buddy takes a cut for taking on the risk.

Yards don't want the .gov snooping around because that never leads to anything good. At the very best it's a delay and distraction. So if you come in with something the .gov is going hard on this month (cats, railway cable, whatever) they will tell you to fuck off to some other yard. And when it's a PITA to fence shit shit doesn't get stolen. That's where you're getting your 30% reduction, not the law. The government is just such a PITA to deal with that scrap yards would rather leave money on the table than have to deal with officer Donut coming by every now and then to check their books.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#374

Post by tehwebguy »

thepasswordis wrote: post #344
joelcollinsdc wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like you can just crack it open and the expensive metal falls out though. It’s an industrial process.

Ummm, no that’s almost exactly how it works actually. https://youtu.be/F8pd_p8gppE

Plus with literally hundreds of millions of dollars in profits there’s no problem doing some “industrial process“

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#375

Post by Gareth321 »

adrr wrote: post #230
User23 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the cops don’t show up to take a report it doesn’t show up in crime report statistics.

Do you have data backing that up? The data is all FOIA-able like calls to the police department and dispatch data. There's also insurance claim data which requires a police report.

This is backwards. Do you have data to prove that police are responding to all stolen property reports?

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#377

Post by heleninboodler »

tpxl wrote: post #366
heleninboodler wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is absolutely no "intrusion" to speak of here. Well, there is, actually. I think it's a bit histrionic to worry about it, but we definitely have intruded on Joe's freedom to buy and sell cats. Maybe he's into cat arbitrage. Maybe he makes them himself. Maybe he's got a lot of cars he doesn't need to drive and is strapped for cash. The point of the sticklers for freedom here is that regular citizens shouldn't…

> but we definitely have intruded on Joe's freedom to buy and sell cats No we haven't. Joe is free to resell converters, provided he proves he obtained them legally, which is trivial _if_ you obtained them legally.

> Joe is free to resell converters, provided ...

... an increased burden over private sales of other goods (and over existing standards for sales of catalytic converters), which quite literally constitutes an "intrusion."

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#378

Post by dsfyu404ed »

acomjean wrote: post #208
dylan604 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could always implement a 3 day waiting period and require background checks. That's worked so well in other markets /s

When my car was totaled I had to buy a new hood. When I brought the car to the state salvage inspection station they checked the VIN #s of the car (front and back). The work was done in New York and it was a new after market hood and there was paperwork attesting to that. There was a pile of a couple doors and some wheels that had been confiscated because they were from stolen vehicles. So in MA there must already so…

>There was a pile of a couple doors and some wheels that had been confiscated because they were from stolen vehicles.

The assumptions baked into your comment are probably the most Massachusetts thing I've heard all week.

The yard just has to check that the vins match the paperwork and that you match the name on the title.

Doors aren't serialized (models that put vehicle info on the driver's door not withstanding). Wheels aren't serialized. Those were sitting there because some employee wanted them, either for personal use or to sell.

Source: Worked in industry, in MA no less.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#379

Post by dsfyu404ed »

alar44 wrote: post #322
rydifyrhffh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious where you live that they don't still care tbh. In my experience police do what they're allowed that will be effective. But if you have a DA who refuses to prosecute people or you pass local laws that make doing their job in a manner that gets results impossible then they tend not to waste their time.

Real life isn't a detective show. Cops don't task resources with hunting down your stolen TV. At best, you may get it back when someone tries to sell it to a pawn shop.

More like you get it back when the drug dealer who's thieving client trades it to him in lieu of cash gets busted and the cops comb his apartment looking for anything else they can charge him with and check the serial vs their list.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#380

Post by dsfyu404ed »

SoftTalker wrote: post #244
giantg2 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Every yard told me that they aren't allowed to deal in used exhaust systems.

This is a long standing emissions law thing that predates theft issues.

They want people to drop big coin on something (be that an exhaust system or a vehicle financed at a borderline usury rate from the local BHPH lot) that will be in compliance for awhile rather than slap a used cat on that will barely pass the test and go out of compliance shortly thereafter.

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