Catalytic converter theft continues to rise in Central Texas

AUSTIN, Texas — It is a problem most individuals have gotten acquainted with nationwide. Native regulation enforcement have been seeing a rise of catalytic converter theft instances.  

In the summertime of 2021, the Austin Police Division had reported almost 900 instances for the yr. Whereas, in 2019, there have been solely 27 thefts for your entire yr. Nationwide, the crime skyrocketed 326% from 2019 to 2020. Austin resident Braxton Johnson-Ray was a sufferer of this. 

“I believed it may need been a muffler situation. I referred to as a muffler restore store and described it and so they mentioned, ‘Test beneath the automobile, I feel your catalytic converter had been stolen.” After I checked beneath the automobile, positive sufficient, the catalytic converter had been stolen,” mentioned Johnson-Ray. 

Based on the Nationwide Insurance coverage Crime Bureau, the theft of catalytic converters elevated as a result of rising worth of the dear metals – particularly rhodium, palladium and platinum, in any other case often called “platinum group metals” or PGMs. Whereas any engine-powered automobile working on gasoline or diesel may be focused for these sort of thefts, usually bigger, high-clearance automobiles are typically focused for the benefit of getting beneath the automobile and eradicating the catalytic converter in a matter of seconds. Nevertheless, hybrid automobiles additionally are typically focused typically as their hybrid system design tends to end in cleaner catalytic converters.

A search on KITCO.com confirmed a excessive for rhodium at $27,000/oz from March 19-22, 2021. On April 12, 2022, rhodium was at $18,400 per ounce. Palladium reached $2,890 per ounce on Could 6, 2021. Now, palladium is about $2,357 per ounce. And lastly, platinum reached a excessive of $1,266 on Feb. 19, 2021, however was at about $977 per ounce in not too long ago.

Sometimes, thieves will typically obtain $50-$250 per catalytic converter after they promote converters to recycling amenities. Whereas the values of those metals are decrease than their peaks in 2021, they’re nonetheless larger than the worth when thefts began rising in 2019.

In March of 2021, APD mentioned the the 5 mostly focused automobiles have been: Toyota Prius (263 thefts), Honda Component (60 thefts), Ford Econoline (37 thefts), Chevrolet Categorical (24 thefts) and Toyota Tundra (17 thefts).

Chad Carter, a property crimes detective with the Travis County Sheriff’s Workplace, mentioned there are methods to guard your automobile. 

“One of many predominant issues is to be strategic on the place you park your automobile. Should you can park it inside your storage or you may park it in a fenced-in space, gated neighborhood, something like that, to the place that slows the particular person down and deters them from stealing converter,” mentioned Carter. 

As for Johnson-Ray, for the reason that incident they mentioned they’ve parked their automobile in well-lit areas as a result of thieves may be ruthless. 

“I may have been somebody who had a sick child who wanted to go choose up drugs. The thieves did not care, they did not know who I used to be, it did not matter to them, they only needed to make a fast buck,” mentioned Johnson-Ray. 

In June of 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Home Invoice 4110 into impact that makes it a felony to steal, purchase or promote stolen catalytic converters. 

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