Catalytic Converter Theft

>Then they can show their mechanic's license.

Scrapyards already need licenses (permits). Adding licensing requirements will just result in the people with licenses buying from the thiefs. It's just another middleman in the chain.

If anything it makes the problem worse because scrapyards often do turn away obvious thieves. A mechanic showing up with ten legit converters and forty stolen ones he bought off the thief gives the scrapyard plausible deniability. Furthermore it moves the illicit transaction outside of a legit commercial establishment and to wherever the thief and the mechanic care to meet.

It's already acknowledged that without enforcement against the people who are actually cutting the cats off regulatory requirements just displace the problem and shift the profit around.

Being a mechanic doesn't require a license although running the commercial establishment generally has some permitting requirements.

> There are plenty of poorer cities where the police have been involuntarily "defunded" by NYC or SF funding standards and they don't have the rampant petty crime that many west coast cities seem to.

The thing is: where there are a lot of juicy targets (e.g. tourists), there will automatically be more petty crimes. As a robber you'll have more profit going around and snatching airpods or phones from a ride in the NYC subway than from walking around in some shoddy 'hood in a flyover state.

> Defunding the police isn't the problem. IMO a stretched thin PD is a well behaved PD.

Actually not, because a "stretched thin" force is more likely to shoot first or otherwise use excessive force to get a suspect under control and ask questions later than to use de-escalative tactics which require extensive training (in Germany cop training is a three year thing for exactly that reason vs. the average 21 weeks in the US). If you want police to approach sensitive stuff like domestic violence or rape in an appropriate manner, the officers will need to have both the training and the time for doing so.

> The problem seems to be related to all the policy baggage that comes with the "defund the police" crowd.

And what "policy baggage" is that? To require a social worker to come with and eventually be leading the response to a domestic violence call isn't baggage, it's the whole point of the thing.

In our market we don’t have CARB but an OEM cat for a Mazda Rx8 retails at £1300. An aftermarket like for like is £800 (there are cheaper “race” cats but its a different product with less of the expensive precious metals inside).

Edit: a fairer example would be a ford focus - one of the most popular cars in the uk. £200 aftermarket main cat, £70 aftermarket pre-cat.

Rhodium is so valuable you can fit tens of millions of dollars of it in a suitcase.

And then you sell it to an actual rhodium mine who just so happens to be particularly productive that month.

Came here to say that, and yes good riddance of the whole emissions cycle we've endured for decades.

EV battery packs are certainly serial numbered and traceable, but these guys will just pivot to breaking up packs and selling cells or whatever.