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 because they aren't sold and reused as is - the rare earth metals are extracted. Something your average criminal won't be capable of doing in their garage.
> 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 junkyards, auto repair shops, and recycling facilities to look the other way.
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. It won't completely eliminate the problem, and it'll be harder unless Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico also take similar steps. But it should also enable more targeting and auditing. One part of this case was filed in California, so I bet they had some kind of sting operation that was made a lot easier when they can lean on a low-level junkyard dealer to testify against the people higher up in the black market.
> 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-preserving law enforcement is difficult.
That doesn’t mean we should cut corners through ever-increasing state oversight targeted at the latest symptoms of criminality.
The choice isn’t between laws like this and having your catalytic converter stolen. The choice is between law enforcement actually doing their job, or invasive and ineffectual laws like this.
The justice department, in the very article we’re discussing, investigated and took down this ring without California’s new “KYC” regulations.
Ever been to a pawn shop? Everything in a legit operation runs through this process.
>> The choice is between law enforcement actually doing their job, or invasive and ineffectual laws like this.
I'm on guard for overreah all the time, but I'm OK with showing ID to buy alcohol, drive a car, fly on a plane, sell items that should rarely be done in bulk outside of rare conditions, like a bunch of catalytic converters.
Locally, a large (100+) chain (Plaid Pantry) of convenience stores also is scanning licenses. Saw somebody with an Olde English 40 and a passport.
It's not the law in Oregon (or Washington) but the article says it is in Tennessee. Also says you can ask them to type in the digits of your birthdate.
I asked a checkout worker about this once (in Ohio), and they claimed they were made to do it so that the state could pressure people with expired drivers' licenses to renew them. (This was right about when they were ending COVID-related extensions on the expiration dates.) I don't agree with using liquor age laws for that either, but I think if the state wanted invasive personal data, they'd just ask Kroger for it.
Is this a law that mandates scanning of IDs for authenticity purposes or storing that data?
The few other states I could easily find online that had a similar law typically require that retailers either don’t store the data or that they delete it within X days.
The shop might store the data or misuse it. This is already a solved problem. A privately signed identity that can be verified without transferring any of the data using a device the government provides.
But I already said government too much. This is all non-senses. Transactions should not be monitored.
I took a flight today. I had to show my ID once at the start of the security line where they did NOT check my boarding pass.
Then at the gate they only wanted to see my boarding pass and not my ID.
So basically nobody actually cares about ID when flying. It would have been trivial to buy the ticket in a false name or "borrow" someone else's name without asking.
To be clear, this failing is all on the gate procedure. If security wanted to check boarding pass or if they have to hooked up on the computer there, a simple bypass would be to buy a cheap ticket in your real name and the ticket you intend to fly in some other name.
This new procedure and equipment is partially rolled out at TSA checkpoints across the US, has been for a couple of years now. The agent's computer shows the flight information. No reason to have an extra step to scan a boarding pass since the computer pulls it all up anyways.
To get through TSA as a member of the general public, you have to have a ticket (or a non-traveler gate pass) in your real name (matching your ID, soon to be real ID requirement) for a flight leaving in the next N hours. International flights check your passport at the boarding gate. For domestic, sure, you could swap to another boarding pass purchased under a different name, but what's the threat model there? You've already been screened.
Say you've done a crime that will be discovered in a few days. You buy a ticket to Detroit and next week the fbi will be wasting its time looking for you in Michigan and trying to convince Canada to search for you in Ontario.
In reality you hopped on a flight to El Paso under a fake name and you are deep into Mexico by now.
Wouldn’t it be pretty obvious you never actually boarded your flight to Detroit? They scan your ticket when you board.
Though totally agree you could fly on a different flight under a fake name assuming that the airlines don’t sync up their records with the IDs the TSA scans at the checkpoints.
I suspect there’s other less visible signals that would make this harder. For example your flight under a fake name might be flagged for being an unknown name/person. Also if you’re on the run it’s hard to buy a flight under a fake name anonymously without a paper trail back to yourself.
>I'm on guard for overreah all the time, but I'm OK with showing ID to buy alcohol, drive a car, fly on a plane, sell items that should rarely be done in bulk outside of rare conditions, like a bunch of catalytic converters.
you should probably re-evaluate your ideas about personal ID with regards to travel if you're interested in over-reach. These laws are routinely used as an anti-immigration method by ICE and equivalents, and there is very little proof that they do much to make the world any safer.
Sure they do, but in an ostensibly-free state is "you must unlock your devices and give immigration full access to the data within" really a reasonable position? If you wanted to bring sketchy data into the country, surely it'd be easier to do it via a VPN, right?
> When did we become so comfortable with the government mandating presentation of papers and tracking of private transactions?
Have you ever run a business? You have to track a lot already. For the IRS, for your business license, for auditing, for compliance depending on what goods and services you sell. You know like firearms, tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals are big ones, but also animals, chemicals, certain kinds of technology. If you require a federal permit, if you sell goods across state, international, if you ship things. Like, I feel like this cat came out of the bag before the 18th century, based on my understanding of the regulation of businesses in the United States.
That's because the allergy medicine might as well just be methamphetamine. That's really more or less what it is, modulo a reduction step. Nobody cares about your allergies, and if you go to buy Sudafed, they're just going to sell it to you. The only thing that will trip you up is if you go from store to store collecting lots of it.
> Nobody cares about your allergies, and if you go to buy Sudafed, they're just going to sell it to you. The only thing that will trip you up is if you go from store to store collecting lots of it.
That's not true. First they don't just sell it to you, they take your ID, record your information, send that to the state, and then sell it you. Going to one store after another after another collecting lots of pills isn't the only thing that will trip people up either. I've had times when I was told I couldn't purchase allergy medication because I'd purchased some already. I had recently, for the family, but I was traveling and didn't have the medication with me.
I wasn't going around to a bunch of stores buying mass quantities of allergy medications, I'd made a purchase once and several days/weeks after tried to make a second purchase. I can't imagine I'm the only person alive who has failed to bring a medication with them while traveling, or suddenly had need for it when they didn't have some immediately on their person, or made a purchase and soon after lost it, only to discover that a pointless restriction brought about by a failed war on drugs prevented a simple purchase fully intended for treatment of a medical condition.
Maybe a more sane threshold for treating people like criminals would help the situation, but honestly the entire program seems like a waste of time of money at this point.
How much Sudafed did you buy?! The daily purchase limits are pretty high. Did you max out your monthly limit in your hometown before traveling?
Really, if we're this wound up about the situation, the answer is simple: just make Sudafed require a prescription, like a zillion other medications. The problem with Sudafed is extremely straightforward: it is a very trivial chemical reaction away from being methamphetamine.
Only one box each time, what specific number of pills were included I couldn't say, but these were normal packages and not some costco-esque barrel full of bulk drugs.
It's also the dumbest, worst kind of meth: the kind you make in a 2-liter bottle using camping gas as a solvent, carefully burping it every 5 minutes so the ammonia gas buildup doesn't rupture the bottle. It could be rational to regulate Sudafed even if lab meth was widely available on the street; the lab meth isn't setting huge building fires.
Just as a note, this didn't work at all. They came up with a better chemistry and now there's more meth than there was before. Breaking Bad dramatized this aspect of it (though their chemistry wasn't correct on purpose).
Mexican superlabs put an end to the shake-and-bake method of making meth. And the biggest problem with shake-and-bake meth was the externalities of people making it at home, including bottles that would burst with caustic chemicals, and properties being condemned from the phosphorous in leaching into the walls.
No there’s plenty of meth around, don’t just guess about things. They’re making meth with a new process at industrial scales these days, by the ton. Fentanyl gets a lot of air time on the news these days but don’t confuse that for prevalence in reality, problems aren’t proportional to the amount of attention they get.
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.
Well, those folks had to spend a few years planning, take flying lessons, dry run everything a few times, and then pull off the most complicated and coordinated terrorist attack in US history.
The actual bomb planning for the Oklahoma City bombing was less than a year and involved two people. So, seems like the bar was raised quite a bit.
You're giving the 9/11 terrorists far too much credit.
They were supported/financed by the Saudis[0] and America dropping the ball was the only reason they succeeded.
It's not so much a big victory for the terrorists as a big black eye for America and our intelligence agencies.
One of the 9/11 pilots was reported to Federal agencies multiple times[1] and the hijacking still took place.
How well did laws to stop isolated crazy people killing lots of people stop … um … a group of countries investing large amounts of money and years of time into planning and training for the largest single attack on a civilian target in history?
I mean sure, you could also ask how laws against shoplifting fail to stop bank robberies, and it would be just as coherent.
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 repair. (It is one of the most safety-critical large systems around.) There's huge disruption, as 600 people per train every 20 minutes simply don't fit on any other means of transport.
Compared to catalytic converters, the disruption to society is far greater, the replacement cost much higher, and the scrap value relatively lower.
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.
>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.
I’m not sure I understand why you think this reduction can’t be attributed to the law?
I think you might have a point that this law may have also deterred 30% of legitimate copper scrap transactions, if basically it made scrap dealers decide not to bother with copper at all…
They deal with copper, just not copper that obviously is rail. Bring in some old plumbing parts no problem. The only people scrapping railroad parts are being paid by the railroad.
If you make them a lot bigger, copper is an excellent conductor. Silver is better yet, but not by enough to be worth the cost (contrary to popular belief, gold isn't very good, though it is better than iron) aluminum is often used as it is cheaper by enough, but it turns out of have weird properties and so extra care is needed to use it.
>The police can — clearly, as per this article — do their job without yet another intrusive privacy overreach being put permanently on the books.
I'm a big proponent making police do actual police work to catch offenders.
In fact, police use of geo-fencing warrants, genealogical database mining, IMSI catchers and other invasions of privacy are all huge overreaches that should be slapped down hard.
That said, what reasonable mechanism do you suggest for police to use in identifying and deterring the catalytic converter (CC) theft market? Having "legitimate" businesses report on their interactions with CCs seems minimally invasive, as compared with other extremely invasive practices already being used by law "enforcement".
Given that (IIUC) most stolen CCs are broken down for the expensive metals they contain, rather than being sold in a black aftermarket, it's unlikely that police can just find a stolen CC and look at its serial number to determine whether or not it's been stolen.
Are you arguing that we should ignore the issue of stolen CCs because any action is worse, or do you have a reasonable suggestion as to how to address this issue? That's not a jab at you. You seem to have strong feelings about this (I don't), so I'd like to understand what potential alternatives might exist to the new law. If you'd expand on that, I'd be most appreciative!
While I don't disagree with the idea that police should do, you know, actual police work, rather than trample on the privacy of the population (e.g., all these calls for encryption back doors as well as the stuff I mention above), it's not clear to me what the issue might be here.
Is this really the case? Isn't a great deal of stolen art not shown around so it can't be identified? I wonder if most stolen art is kept in vaults and never shown to anyone.
It's funny how you have to argue on HACKER news against government overreach and you get downvoted. It's actually not funny. It's sad. I remember a time the hacker community was very weary of the government. Today they seem to defend it no matter what.
Hackers in the sense that HN uses the term have never been a monoculture. "Government" isn't a monolithic concept either. Some is good but some is not.
Plenty of hackers, for instance, supported the creation of the EPA. I know plenty of permaculture hackers and mycologist hackers who very much want the government regulating pollutants and safety.
The hacker ethos is not limited to computers. The medium doesn't matter. It can be programming or gardening or art or body modification or whatever. The important part of 3 the experimental, curious, often "hacked together" nature of the projects combined with a sort of joy in discovery. Stallman has, for instance, called out particular poets and musicians as hackers.
Ridiculously targeted laws like this are quite a new invention.
I see that the “[feeling of] safety above all” contingent is quite voracious about defending this latest government intrusion, so I’ll stop giving them comments to downvote.
I don't think a law like that is really a problem. There are already laws on the books similar to it (pawn shop laws and such) where KYC is a big thing to prevent the fencing of stolen goods.
It can be as simple as this:
1. Joe brings in a cat
2. Store takes the cat, but writes down Joes important information (DL #, name, address, etc)
3. If Joe brings a new cat in within some reasonable time period factoring in possibly fixing a used car or something he's reported to the authorities for suspicion of theft.
Exceptions to (3) can be made to people who can present the valid credentials of an auto repair shop and are operating as agents of that shop. Then the shop can be placed in the record book and tracked with different standards.
With this in place you will only be able to fence X number of cats easily where X is the number of shops within some reasonable distance. You could even make this national if you really wanted to prevent transportation over a border.
Sure, you could argue this won't fix anything because shops that are dirty will remain dirty. This is simply solved by having an already existing traffic enforcement body once a year check books. If your books are out of order your business is closed and an investigation is done to see if you're acting as a fence. Same as pawn shops.
There is absolutely no "intrusion" to speak of here. You are in possession of a highly valuable, commonly stolen item. KYC by a company should be a minimum standard. Do you think that requiring a car title and asking for registration, etc when you sell a car to a lot is also an intrusion? I'm afraid to ask you if you even know what fencing actually is. No one is saying you can't cut your own cat off and sell it privately. The goal is to eliminate the easiest possible routes for fencing and make it not only difficult but also expensive criminally to continue.
> 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 need an explanation for why they're buying or selling a particular thing to another private party, and therefore tracking the fact that they did is an intrusion.
It's not technically wrong. It's an intrusion. It just happens to be an intrusion I think is reasonable.
... an increased burden over private sales of other goods (and over existing standards for sales of catalytic converters), which quite literally constitutes an "intrusion."
There is quite literally a difference between selling a cat to your friend and selling it to a business that makes money liquidating cats (this sentence is actually humorous if you dont know what cat is short for...).
I have no interest in stopping Joe from selling to Bob, or going on craigslist and selling his wares if he, for some reason, has figured out a way to manufacturer with rare earth metals in his garage. Though I think this is a bit of a stretch of the normal argument. First, because catalytic converters are exceedingly hard to create. Second, because the profit is not in arbitrage but rather theft. Making a catalytic converter is very expensive. There are only a dozen or so companies with the infrastructure to make them at a scale that is profitable. Hence, if we could magically wish away cat theft it would not be remotely profitable to do some kind of rare earth arbitrage by the books. So, ipso facto, it is a good place to enforce at the very least a minimum amount of KYC with associated punishments when third party sales to businesses who do this sort of thing is involved.
I understand the arguments from the other side are the same arguments made for the KYC surrounding the $10,000 withdrawal limit to "stop drug money". I disagree with that kind of KYC. When in 99% cases they are ill gotten gains there must be something done because the alternative is foisting the cost ($300-$XXXX dollars) onto the innocent and throwing your hands up. Worse yet, it's not a one time cost and these criminals, undeterred, will simply return to steal the new one as well. This is no way to treat law abiding citizens.
Laws requiring you to provide paperwork don't make you guilty until proven innocent. And there are a lot of laws like that (filing your tax return anyone?).
Maybe it's how you frame anyone who wants actionable solutions as screaming "WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?"... Applying very narrow information collection requirements on a rare act that is prone to illegal activity is exactly the type of "government intrusion" we should welcome. If you want a hill to die on, pick something more meaningful.
>...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?
The U.S. has always been like this, especially since taking down the mob in the 70's and the War On Drugs in the 80's. Out of all the laws, most people aren't going to be hemmed up with catalytic converter KYC compared to things such as the War On Drugs and the watering down of the 4th amendment.
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.
Does not a law like this allow to actually GAF and start acting on leads towards resellers at FB, etc? Without resale being criminalized, what grounds would police have to even look at the middlemen?
Between the surge of violent crime, defunding police budgets, and firing of city police forces due to vaccine status, inflation causing massive poverty. Do you think police departments have the resources to tackle these massive amount of larceny cases?
I'd like to be respectable with regards to opposing views about this but wtf did people think would happen following these things?
Ah yes, for all of those thieves looking for a quick buck driving 1300 miles round-trip to Gallup instead of a quick hop down to TJ where they can grab contraband for the return trip. I guess instead of drugs, the New Mexico bandits can bring back some of those cheap (cheep) small-cage eggs back to California, but they’ll have to be fast, like Burt Reynolds did with his eighteen-wheeler.
Here "to unpack" is used in the school literature class sense of "to analyze in detail and discuss". Thus, "a lot to unpack" is a flippant suggestion that a comment could serve as a fruitful subject for discussion (meaning: for unfunny jokes, speculations about the commenter's mental state, socially disapproved activities, and/or political affiliation, etc.)
An "a lot to unpack" comment adds little value by itself. It's basically a verbal reaction emoji.
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 some sort of process for tracking this stuff. Won’t help for raw material and it’s probably not fool proof but it seemed to be something.
‘Bills of sale evidencing acquisition of all major component parts used to restore the vehicle. If the vehicle was wholly or partially restored with “used” parts, the receipts must contain the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the vehicle(s) from which the part(s) were taken.’
>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.
It used to be that back when local cops cared about property crime this was standard operating procedure. When I was a kid if you etched a serial number into your bike frame and parts and registered it with the local PD you were practically assured you’d get your bike back when it inevitably showed up at a pawn shop or similar.
It's still like that here in Japan: bikes are all registered with the police and have stickers with their registration numbers. When they're stolen (which is usually done by drunk people wanting a quick ride home, or teenagers using them for joyrides) and recovered, the police will bring the bike back to the registered owner. Usually, the best way to avoid theft is to simply lock your bike's rear wheel so it can't be ridden away easily.
LAPD doesn't. Although I've since learned that supposedly the trick is to call their Spanish non-emergency number since all the operators are bilingual anyways and there's lower call volume.
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.
If you've never experienced the indifference of a cop taking a property crime report and the complete lack of follow up, just pick a place and you can look at non-violent crime clearance rate.
I don't think it's something you can lay at the feet of the SF Police Department. I asked Pete McLaughlin, SFPD (retired), why the police don't go after bike thieves more aggressively.
"Our hands are tied," he said. "They [the thieves] know the most we can do is give them a citation, and they'll be out that afternoon."
California has a history of being lenient with non-violent crime, which is appropriate in some cases, but maybe not in others. Maybe leniency is the wrong approach for some of these bike thieves.
But it's complicated. I heard Jerry Brown (former California Governor) talk about how ~10% of the state budget goes to prisons, and he's not comfortable with such a large amount, and I agree--throwing people in jail is expensive!
Asking a cop about why they didn't do their job is like asking a dev how their bug ended up in prod. You'll get an answer, but it will neither sate your desire for improvement, or actually shed light on any systemic issues.
As it happens I experienced exactly this scenario when a homeless person broke into my house while I was asleep, stole a bunch of stuff, and then made off with my car. The cop certainly didn't solve all my problems but they were clear about what they needed to know and what I'd need to do if I wanted to hear back from the city when the person was found. If the police in your area don't care it seems far more likely that they either don't feel allowed to police effectively or they feel their efforts will be wasted.
Where I live they don't even send police for non-injury accidents anymore. Even if there's a hit and run no police get sent.
Property crimes don't matter anymore. When my friends got their catalytic converters stolen the police never even bothered to show up. Taking statements may not get their cats back, but it goes towards building up a large enough case to justify a unit to handle it.
You are correct though. Our DA is a "soft on crime" type. As a result, all forms of criminal behavior have increased dramatically in the last several years.
SF recalled their supposedly "not hard on crime" DA, mostly because he offended the local Asian voters, but the new supposedly "hard on crime" DA in practice doesn't seem to be having much effect. Similarly Chesa didn't oversee Oakland or any other nearby areas but I've still seen people who live there blame things on him.
People generally have no idea how much crime there is. If you asked most people which of NYC and Oklahoma is safer they'd get it wrong whether or not they lived there.
No they recalled him because he was refusing to prosecute anyone for anything because he was mad that his terrorist parents were in jail for being terrorists.
There is a wide gap between liberal “people shouldn’t go to jail because they were on drugs while poor” and “no one should be prosecuted for anything”
Seattle just elected a "hard on crime" Republican prosecutor, who rode in on a wave of promises of prosecuting every misdemeanor, including the backlog (Her opponent was going to prioritize, and drop most of the backlog.)
She got into office, paid a lot of money to legal consultants, and a few months later, announced that she will be... Dropping the backlog of misdemeanors.
She gave up on some of the backlog because the evidence was stale and there were bigger fish to fry. It’s not “giving up” rather declaring bankruptcy so you can focus on more current and serious crimes. This is what happens when you are passed a 3 year backlog from your predecessor.
> She gave up on some of the backlog because the evidence was stale and there were bigger fish to fry.
She attacked that exact same line of reasoning when running for election.
Unsurprisingly, once actually elected, as everyone had said all along, it turned out to be the only way to go forward.
And, of course, the promised reductions in crime are, well, not exactly in any hurry to materialize.
On the one hand, it's a plus that she prioritized good sense over dogma, but on the other hand, it's a little strange how her policies are only bad when its the other party that's advocating for them.
The opponent was advocating for not prosecuting any misdemeanors as a matter of policy. There's a big difference.
Edit because I happen to have the interview bookmarked: Nicole Thomas-Kennedy was the opponent, and in her own words[1], "the goal is to end misdemeanor prosecution."
> She attacked that exact same line of reasoning when running for election.
NTK was a nutter who wanted to stop all prosecution in the city. Ann Davison was a tough on crime realist. Huge difference.
You might be referring to the incumbent who didn't make it through the open primary, but he got us into this mess in the first place. No one was going to give him another shot.
State your sources if you’re taking the position that police solve crime.
If you’re referring to that SF DA that was refusing to prosecute people that was a case where their public platform was to stop over criminalizing but it turned out that their parents were terrorists and they just wanted them out of jail.
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.
The trick is that the cops can stop caring and everyone will blame the DA; it's similar to how voters always think "crime" is increasing recently no matter the actual statistics or how safe the area they live in is.
American police are similar to a permanent paramilitary class like Janissaries or samurai. The local governments don't actually control them and as a civilian encountering them means they may kill you for honor violations.
Go ahead and try to find the guidelines, charter, mission, etc. for any municipality policing force. If there is one. Now try and define the actual jurisdiction they have, and the _requirements_ for fulfilling their charge.
How many US citizens younger than 70, without FU $$, do not immediately act like they need to be on their "best behavior" when a Uniformed Officer drives (or less likely, walks/bikes) through? Now add any attribute that makes you stick out from the rest of the community. Does it still feel like they are there to protect you?
Skin color? Religious attire that isn't a suit w/tie or a dress? Hair color? Music? Having way too much fun in a public place while being younger than 30?
I heard that stolen cats are sent by the rings to China for recycling/extraction. So just looking at domestic resellers isn’t going to help much, and you need to start peeking into shipping containers that head back to China usually very empty.
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 the car, retrieve the cable and sell on Ebay. How much do one of those charging cables go? $200? If not, and if the owner does something to lock the cable, cutting it for the copper is still worth a few dollars.
I wonder if this is part of the reason the new superchargers have liquid cooled cables. Less copper. Also, supercharger cables are way shorter than any other charger.
> 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.
I commented to the other fellow, but long story short; wasn't thinking about the high voltage fast charging lines, but rather little level 1 chargers people would use to charge cars parked on the street over night. Intact, they're worth a fair amount and at least first glance there doesn't seem to be a lot of risk involved if done properly.
Wasn't really thinking about the high voltage fast chargers; you can just cut those straight off the super charging station without a car there. I was thinking more along the lines of those little Level 1 CCS chargers that someone would use to charge a parked car on the street overnight.
And aim here is to retrieve the charging cable intact. If you do it right the drill bit shouldn't be getting anywhere close to the energized lines. Just an example, check this data sheet for an EV inlet port: https://www.phoenixcontact.com/us/products/1162148/pdf
The locking mechanism is located to the side. You don't need to remove the locking pin as it's recessed in the charging handle itself, you just need to destroy the mechanism behind the pin so that there's enough void there for you to jostle the pin out and free the connector.
In theory it should actually be quite safe for a thief.
I doubt it. Catalytic converters are stolen because they're valuable and easy to make off with. Car batteries are frickin giant, and if you try and take only a piece you get a giant fire instead of a valuable source of rare metals. They don't seem like a great thing to steal.
Agreed. It’s thirty seconds with a battery powered reciprocating saw to remove a cat which is also light enough to be carried by one person. There’s no way EV batteries could be accessed and transported away so quickly.
A new incentive to steal cars then. Steal car, harvest battery cells worth $20k+, ditch the rest of the car. No silly VIN numbers, etc. Just anonymous 18650 cells (or whatever they use now).
You are really discounting the ingenuity of criminals. If they can steal 4 tires with wheel locks off your car, they can steal your undercarriage battery.
EV batteries are becoming STRUCTURAL, meaning they make up the core vehicle shell of the car, use hardened steel reinforcement and weight 1-2K pounds. They're also super dangerous if punctured. It would be easier to steal the whole vehicle than to steal the battery alone.
I'd go so far as to say that an EV is a glorified "battery with wheels" since the actual drive components are a minority of the weight/complexity/cost. If a criminal can steal the whole EV, they will, if they cannot then stealing the battery alone isn't realistic.
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.
Really? I'm pretty sure I have the tools in my garage to steal 4 wheels with locking nuts. I'm absolutely certain I couldn't steal the battery in my EV without stealing the whole EV. Which has a GPS tracker built into it.
Let's say you get the battery out by unbolting it in a short amount of time. You'd have to let it drop onto something to then remove it from the car. In one video a person used 2x4s then pulled it out with another vehicle.
Now what? How do you get it into another vehicle to transport? There's no place for a small crane to attach to. You would need some sort of hydraulic lift that would be similar to a pallet jack. Once it's up you then need to move it onto the truck which would be difficult.
Maybe you can drag it on the back of a truck using a pickup bed mounted winch.
Finally what do you do with it? It's nearly impossible to remove the individual cells, they are incased in some sort of protective foam that you have to chisel out. Sell the entire thing? Tesla will know the battery is stolen, car reads the serial number, bam, back to you.
Not to mention how large it is, how many could you do in one night?
More importantly why did you make your post? Do you have EVs so much that anytime even a slight advantage comes along you have to dispute it? Maybe you just like to argue. It's just really weird.
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.
The kingpin at the top of the food chain sold the metals to a refinery. There were many levels below him of catalytic converters being bought and sold before they got to the kingpin.
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 uniquely a CA issue, some after-market vendors wont even sip to CA/NY; however, most states will allow you to retrieve them from junked cars and will personally do that for you if you are willing to pay for their time--most have pick a part solutions as it's cheaper on labour to do it that way since dismantling/sorting/testing is very labour/time intensive.
I bought a few ex manifolds and cats for several cars from other states and shipped into CA when I worked in the auto industry, it just wasn't cheap.
Because good luck getting a decent ex manifold for a 1968 BMW 2002 or 1991 850i from Bavaria and you will soon be so sticker shocked you will pay whatever it takes to get it state-side, especially since one of those cars is smog-exempt and the dealer is charging you every hour your car is taking up a rack waiting for the RO to be completed.
>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.
In my state, which has an annual emissions inspection, I have yet to meet a non-dealer mechanic who will not do everything possible to get a vehicle with a bad cat through the inspection process.
CA added new machines to testing that report every test to try to slow this down but every mechanic knows where to find the old machines that can run tests without reporting.
They just want to get you on the road and they’re damn good about it (and to be fair much of what they do to pass actually fixes real issues - i went from being a gross polluter to passing when the mechanic replaced the spark plug wire that was grounding out).
>CA added new machines to testing that report every test to try to slow this down but every mechanic knows where to find the old machines that can run tests without reporting.
>They just want to get you on the road and they’re damn good about it
Don't worry, the east coast has a solution for this harmonious alignment of business and customer incentives: 'safety' inspections
I took the training back when I lived in MA. The 3rd party that did the training (same contractor that did the computer systems at the time) basically said that the state's priority is clean air and that safety inspections only exist to make the combined safety+emissions license lucrative for a shop to hold and create an incentive not to subvert the interest of the state (by fudging emissions inspections) in favor of the customer (who the mechanic wants a good relationship with). Basically they want doing business via the state (by using your inspection license to make a bunch of work) to be more lucrative than any business you get helping customers dodge the state's interest. The lady running the training even started it by congratulating the class on "this lucrative next step in our careers and businesses" (which is somewhat hilarious because there is very little easy money in automotive repair).
That said, by the time I got out of that industry (mid 00s) they had stopped using tailpipe sniffers (at least in MA) and the economic realities of parts vs labor had more or less made any cheating beyond what the vehicle owner could do themselves irrelevant.
Something deeply ironic about emissions inspections in my state: my diesel VW is exempt from them. Some shops might do a cursory look to be sure you haven't deleted the particulate filter or the catalytic converter, but, really, most just make sure there is a pipe running from the exhaust manifold to the rear of the vehicle.
Last summer, I accompanied my son when he went across the state line to purchase a truck from a private seller. Said state has no inspection requirements. One of the seller's other trucks was a diesel conversion, and the exhaust was just routed up through the bonnet. Definitely no cat on that vehicle!
The emissions inspections things were important during the late 70s-80s when they were really badly done on the American cars (you could disconnect the "smog pump" and get a better running engine). This is where the diesel exemption came from - trucks had nothing much at all (and I don't think they started adding cats for quite awhile, as dirty diesel (non-low-sulfur) was very common and would kill a cat faster than curiosity).
Nowadays the real emission inspection is the computer in the car itself, continually monitoring and tracking what is going on.
A friend, who is a diesel mechanic, just went through the diesel emissions timeline with me very recently.
EGR valves -> DPFs -> DEF
I understand the necessity of these systems, but it seems like they are incredible fragile (the DPFs on VWs are prone to cracking and new ones are more than the average cat). I also understand why people do DPF deletes...
EGR and DPF on diesels are just trash and will be for the foreseeable future barring some yet unknown development in materials science. DEF, while another obnoxious consumable is pretty problem free by comparison
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.
Shield is only a possible time-lengthening deterrent. I installed one and my cat was still stolen. I can't say how many attempts it deterred in the mean time, if at all.
I may be misreading this but the margins look insane. DG Auto paid like 38 million USD for stolen converters, performed a simple extraction process, then sold the precious metals for 550 million USD. Wow.
> Really wish the cops would download a list of who installed this app and find their location data on top of a map of reported thefts...
Uh... So, I too found the website and couldn't believe how brazen the business is. I too was surprised about the app. If I downloaded the app because I was so surprised, should my name be given to the police as part of this investigation?
Sure, why not? It's not like anyone is saying merely installing the app makes you guilty of anything. It's just a lead. Police chase leads all the time and then abandon when they determine the person isn't involved in the crime.
Well, for starters, to prevent the police from kicking my door in and shooting me or my pets simply because I was placed on a list of people who downloaded an app. Simply "police chase and abandon leads all the time" is not a strong enough rationale to justify the original suggestion to me.
Is it seriously your working model of police that they’re frequently given lists of people who download apps and instructed to kill them? That’s how you believe policing works?
I know the BLM astroturfing had a profound effect on the rest of the internet, but it’s disappointing to see such a skewed version of reality presented here on HN.
I just downloaded the app. Bring on the marauders. If they end up blasting me, you can start a charity in my honor, Vogt.
It is an accurate model that police frequently bust down the doors of people who are suspected of a crime based only on a third party's report, and not because of any investigation or probable cause. It's also accurate that police are trained to escalate extremely quickly, including the use of lethal force. And it's accurate that policing has a culture of unapologetic lethal force.
One would have to have their head in the sand the last couple years to have not heard these kind of stories. I'd hope that people on this site would still be able to infer that legally downloading an app isn't enough to trigger that kind of response in literally any US jurisdiction.
The world is a scary place, cops can be bastards, and terrible things have happened, but it's straight up hyperbole and nonsense to pretend that a random internet nerd is going to get killed by police because they downloaded an app. I downloaded it (it's crap, as expected), so if I'm wrong on this then I'm willing to face the music, yet somehow I think I'll sleep fine at night.
I had a pretty snarky reply that I made and then deleted, because I went to your profile and looked at your Twitter account and honestly, I think we have quite a bit in common and would probably get along on most issues. And also, I really like your music.
Looking back on the wording of my original reply, it was too hyperbolic. My post was not meant as an "ACAB, the police are literally here to kill you on behalf of rich old men". My position is that the fewer opportunities for folks to be thrown into a pile of suspects for the police or any other law enforcement institution like the FBI, the better. I'm in favor of the police being able to subpoena Apple and Google for user data if there's reasonable, articulable suspicion those users committed a crime. To me, simply downloading a publicly available app in the app store does not satisfy that condition.
Of course not. My position is that if one person is wrongly persecuted despite breaking no laws, they should not be considered a suspect. Once police decide "We need the list of everyone who downloaded the app.", those 50,000 people are all suspects.
Here's what I _would_ be in favor of:
-Police bust Catalyic Converter Kingpin in one form or another
-Police learn in the course of investigation that said kingpin was a prolific user of said app
-Police subpoena the usernames of accounts that corresponded directly with the kingpin
There's a compromise to be had here without throwing 50,000 into a digital suspect bin when maybe half were people actually complicit to...wait for it...a crime.
By that logic you're fine with Google handing over all users' location data to the police? Since the police can just determine if you're not involved in crime from it.
Yes. I'd say that counts as probable cause, someone who downloaded the app probably committed a crime. The standard for a search isn't beyond a reasonable doubt.
Probably not? Is doing something that is likely aiding in a crime, but that you don't know for certain is, enough to make you a co-conspirator? Does it change if you do it frequently enough that you're sure you've aided in a crime a fair number of times? I think not, but I'm not sure what the relevant legal standards are.
> What about the people who did app review
Even less likely than Apple, and even if it's technically illegal it would be a good exercise of prosecutorial discretion to not charge them.
The word "probably" here is in the context of probable cause, which (as we all know) is a criminal law standard. The commenter is not suggesting that a download should be enough to face charges, but that it would be enough for law enforcement to investigate you.
You should investigate them at least. There's no harm in shining a little light on how purely criminal app got approved to be in the walled garden. And maybe some money to be forfeitured there as well.
It seems like this could be a legitimate business too. Running a breakers yard can be a good business if you part things out and sell what is valuable. Second hand parts that have no faults are often quite valuable, even for older vehicles.
In my country scrapped vehicles are issued a certificate that you can use to reclaim taxes. Maybe manufacturers should start adding unique codes to all parts so you can be sure it comes from a legitimate source.
>Really wish the cops would download a list of who installed this app and find their location data on top of a map of reported thefts...
This would be a massive time unless their goal is to find and harass every small time used car parts dealer.
Thieves don't really care about precise prices on cats. They just know that certain year/make/model ranges are what to go after.
The target market of this app is people who sell used car parts for money and want to know the value of the parts. When you are buying a random car for $500-1k with the intent of selling wheels/tires and a couple other big ticket items before scrapping the car for a couple hundred you care a lot about whether the cat is $200 or $1200 for obvious reasons.
That's one group of thieves selling 38 million worth to them. Later on in the document more groups of thieves are listed, getting paid 13, 45, and 6 million dollars. But that's still not necessarily the whole amount paid to thieves.
Also, it's quite possible that some of their business, and thus sales to refineries was legitimate. None of their partners are listed in the press release as being arrested.
This makes me very curious how many steps in the laundering chain you have to go before it’s no longer indefensibly obvious that something's not right with the sourcing.
I think taking down the buyers is a the best tool we have right now for this issue.
And there are things we could do to make that easier, like putting a serial number on the converter on new cars and replacement parts. Requiring the make, model, and serial number of the car it was removed from, and a web site with a DB that has the ID number of cars they've been stolen from so buyers could check it.
Make those who buy and sell and steal them pay for it. For new car buyers all they be paying for is the addition of the serial number. Can't add much cost to engrave those during production.
I thought the main selling point was scrapping the catalytic converter for the platinum and palladium inside. In that model a ID system for the catalytic converter itself isn't going to put to much friction on illicit activity.
It isn't hard to melt those metals out. I used melt aluminum in my backyard, and the forums for that had discussions on other metals. While a backyard process is not going to recover all the metal, it is still going to get plenty.
People would grind off the serial numbers and sell them on the secondary market, or for the metals. With motorcycles, for example, motors and frames have vin numbers stamped to help prevent this, but you’ll sometimes see cheap parts for sale with the vin cleaned off.
In case anyone thinks this is cost prohibitive or the tooling is rare, a $100 battery powered grinder you can buy from Home Depot will do this in five seconds. If you have a little less money and a little more time, a $5 flat file will do the same thing in a few minutes.
Depends. The number stamping process does change the metal’s underlying metallurgy throughout the the metal where it was stamped. So unless you drill out the number through the entire metal (which is viable if you’re going to extract the minerals), there’s a possibility of reconstructing the serial number with some level of probability.
Happens with guns.
But that’s why you criminalize the trade of unmarked parts. Actually makes the prosecutor’s job easy that way rather than proving the part was actually stolen and not your retirement cat investment.
> The number stamping process does change the metal’s underlying metallurgy throughout the the metal where it was stamped. So unless you drill out the number through the entire metal (which is viable if you’re going to extract the minerals), there’s a possibility of reconstructing the serial number with some level of probability.
Yeah: No one thinks it's mechanically difficult to remove identifiers. The point is to make such altered parts illegal to buy. Similar to VIN restrictions or handgun signifiers in many states.
The thieves do not care about this and neither do the scrappers. They’ll both grind the serials off within a minute of taking possession if they’re still there.
It already is. Pawnshops and a lot of other businesses are not allowed to buy items with defaced serial numbers in most states. The stolen converter fences are already operating outside the law and I think what he is saying is that the serial numbers are sort of irrelevant here because the stolen converters are getting melted down anyway and it’s not gonna be on the shelves anywhere for someone to spot.
Because that's not what happens with stolen catalytic converters, so it wouldn't change anything. Stolen cathalytic converters are valuable due to precious metals that can be extracted from them.
On the ground, the situation with CFC refrigerants is probably a lot leakier (pun intended) than you think.
There are a lot of AC systems repaired at stations that don't even own a recovery machine. (This is legal, so long as the system has already leaked out to nothing before starting the repair. I suspect that gets a wink and a nod a fair amount of the time.)
Some refrigerants can only be legally sold to resellers or to users with an EPA certification. Sounds strict, huh? Well...the 609 certification test can be done online, is open book, and cost me $25 and 15 minutes to get.
Probably has to do with not being able to earn a few hundred dollars in a few minutes with the education of how to use a simple cutting tool from Home Depot.
I wonder if the scheme outlined is more or less stringent than the US's legal ability to track guns. For now, they require serial numbers, but my understanding is that the ATF is disallowed from using computers to track firearms. It would be ironic if catalytic converters ended up with stricter controls than guns.
You have to license the buyers and make them account for every lb they recycle by having the serial numbers to compare it. They would have to submit those number as soon as the buy one. If the converter doesn't have one they can't buy it, and setting up stings for that would be pretty easy.
Well, it starts locally. A meth head stealing a converter isn't going very far to sell it. Odds are most are sold to junkyards that sell them to a larger recycler that processes the PGMs.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume that entire illegal market could move offshore without a trace.
I don't think serial numbers would help in this case, as the converters are stolen, precious metals extracted, and then those metals are sold. The bit that would likely be stamped with a serial number is likely discarded.
Once you have a small sheet you go to a scrap yard and say your dead grandpa was a hobby jeweler and nobody wants to continue the hobby. The important part is make it into a form where nobody can recognize it.
The grade isn't as pure as industrial processes, but it isn't too bad. Likewise, while the yield isn't good, even if you collect 50% the value is high enough.
That's one of the things an auto shop can do for you. You don't need a new serial number or database; your VIN is good enough. But of course a thief can grind that off.
The other one is welding on the converter. It doesn't make it unstealable; but it's just not a quickie extraction anymore.
If your question is (as it should be), "What about legitimately fixing the converter? Can you still do that?" , I don't know.
Washington State passed laws targeting businesses that would buy catalytic converters that are basically KYC laws requiring ID and other stuff. Anecdotally it seems to have reduced the number of reports on the local news blog and nextdoor.
I’ve armored both of my IC engine vehicles due to the local theft issues which spiked after the pandemic started. Cost about $400 per vehicle (both happen to be the top targets for thieves). I’m hoping it’s saved me the annoyance of having the part stolen, but I’m rather sad to see things degenerate to this level. Glad to see the feds really go after the crooks.
For mine, I used stainless steel wire rope woven all across the underside of the vehicle in a manner that would make it impossible to remove a catalytic converter if they cut it off without also having to cut most of the wire rope. This method prevents heat buildup that could occur if you use a steel or aluminum plate to conceal it while adding enough complexity to the removal that you make it more likely that they are discovered in the process. Most of these thieves are trying to get in and out ASAP.
So far it has worked. That is either because the vehicle has not been targeted (most likely case) or because the thieves saw who may have targeted it realized that there were easier vehicles to hit parked nearby (not unlikely but certainly less likely).
Treating this press release like a story problem in 5th grade math, there's something off:
> Last year approximately 1,600 catalytic converters were reportedly stolen in California each month, and California accounts for 37% of all catalytic converter theft claims nationwide.
> The black-market price for catalytic converters can be above $1,000 each, depending on the type of vehicle and what state it is from.
> Defendants ... operated DG Auto... DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
How did they make $545M in a racket whose upper limit on annual profit is a tenth of that? Perhaps that figure represents DG Auto's gross revenue, only a portion of which comes from recycling converters?
1) maybe they ran the ring for more than a decade?
2) 1600 is just the number reported. I’d imagine not many people report the thefts, especially if your car insurance premiums will rise (insurance companies raise premiums even if you don’t make a claim if they have information that suggests your neighborhood or places you frequent are at increased risk of theft)
3) possibly the rate of catalytic converter thefts has risen dramatically in 2022 compared to 2021
> > Defendants ... operated DG Auto... DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
> How did they make $545M in a racket whose upper limit on annual profit is a tenth of that? Perhaps that figure represents DG Auto's gross revenue, only a portion of which comes from recycling converters?
Because the converters themselves are only worth $1k each on the black market, but apparently quite a bit more if stripped and processed further, to bare precious metal powders, which are much easier to work with.
I just got my Toyota car on monday after almost 5 months of it sitting in the repairshop waiting for new catalytic converter after original one was stolen. Poland.
I recently had a couple of catalytic converters stolen. I think the same guys stole about 20 grand worth of tools and scientific equipment. I have their faces and vehicle on video, but they haven't been caught.
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.
Is there a national bicycle theft ring? I have a vague impression that it's mostly small groups. Steal a few bikes, maybe swap some parts around, sell them as used bikes, repeat.
This takedown seems to have been possible because there was a central group that was moving hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen goods - maybe even billions if you take "cost to manufacture" instead of "resell value". Why would a bike theft ring that centralized exist?
I doubt there is one, it seems to me that even with bikes being as expensive as they are the value isn't there. But, maybe? There was an interesting story a year ago about bikes being stolen from CO and popping up for sale in Mexico. The article is long but has a summary at the top of the page.
https://bikeindex.org/news/closing-the-loop-a-deep-dive-on-a...
> This theft is so costly and prevalent in my neighborhood, it's like $2,500 per 100 people. In 2 years, I've had mine stolen twice.
Bay area? i thought i was bad in Socal, I had my Gen 2 Prius siting outside a residential area near a major university town while I was away in EU and had mine stolen. I had to junk a decently running hybrid because of this as Toyota had a shortage of them and since the Prius was designed for the California market without the Toyota stamp on the cat its an instant fail for emissions, even if the ppms are within spec with an aftermarket part: no exceptions!
It's literally the most ironic thing I've experienced and I worked in the auto industry and at VW through Diesel gate!
This is so wide-spread and many good cars just ended up in the scrap yard when it was an easy fix to just allow for temp smog exemption, mine still for 40+mpg with worn batteries and thus exceeded most of what is sold on the market now, but because of regulatory capture and how insurance policy works it was the most expedient albeit wasteful solution--this is what I fear AI will bring about in most cases if left to its own devises and unchecked, too. Some made it to neighboring states without this requirement (OR/AZ/NV/CO) but the issue was logistical because you'd need a temp Cat installed to drive to said state, but in early '21 you could get them for <$1000 and recovered your costs as they soared in value as gas inflation pries kicked in gear.
I actually pitched this as a to a friend who was having his 1st kid at the time, he offered me funding (mid 5 figures) but I couldn't work with him due to the child so I left the idea and took off to EU instead. I had anticipated and projected healthy returns, $2k/unit after expenses, little did I know it would go to $7k+ per unit as I found my sources for the legwork: 49 state legal cats, mechanics to install, and drivers ready to go (mainly me). It's mainly what I had done at VW after all, logistically speaking.
There was a total parallel economy in shield installs, part/chassis swaps and tracking devises etc... because it got worse not better. I attribute a lot of this to the issue wit unemployment payments, and general lack of help for those during covid people got desperate and would probably be foisted into this easier than before.
Yes, Bay, also Gen 2 Prius (#1 target). Luckily, I had insurance to cover both, but still $1k of deductibles and premiums. I also had a shield installed after the first time, as they're supposed to slow down enough to deter most, but alas it was still hit again. Now, I have to garage the car at night by constantly moving home gym equipment, so my life is still somewhat negatively impacted to this day.
Yea, they have the most PM of all cars on the road in the US; Toyota over built them as they were to be the California car and as you know many are still on the road as result of this over-engineering despite this high theft issue.
At least you got to keep yours, I bought mine as a salvage buy-back from it's original owner (2008 with only 72k miles) but it had a check engine light on it (p420/bad cat) since the accident.
I had the bare min liability since I was in Europe at the time and I was thinking of putting it on non-op. I installed a new cat in 2018 I bought from Toyota and drove it when I was in CA since I lived in CO most of the year when I lived in the US. I wanted a shield but most had mixed reviews. I left thinking our neighborhood is mainly family's and with so many at home during covid I'd be safe.
Wrong assumption on my part.
> I also had a shield installed after the first time,
Yeah, not all shields are built equally, some you can't even remove from the chassis after they're installed causing an issue with visual inspections and having automatic fails so they put little peek windows on them in later versions/iterations; hence the parallel economy that sprung over 2020-21 after many years of theft as it became so wide-spread, I was on Prius chat quite a lot those years and it was like every couple of hours you'd see a new member with a 'cat stolen' thread.
> Now, I have to garage the car at night by constantly moving home gym equipment, so my life is still somewhat negatively impacted to this day.
Well, you can always sell it, the premiums on them are so good on one in CA you can probably get something else if it's that much of an issue on you since things are likely to remain that way in the Bay Area.
But I'm guessing like most Prius owners, especially after all this ordeal, you will probably keep it until it dies at this point. When did yours get stolen and when was it replaced, most of 2021 Toyota was out of them [0] and did your insurance cover it with full coverage? What does it cost to insure now after this?
I scrapped mine because the tags were due and I couldn't find a cat without a massive premium and ultimately reporting it would increase insurance on all my cars and bikes and that wasn't worth it in the end.
Stolen summer of 2020 and 1 month ago. I guess I got lucky with supply avoiding 2021. Yes, Geico insurance covered both of them as I had comprehensive for $21 / 6 months, with high $500 deductible (bills were $2.5k and $3k). My rates didn't go up either (truly don't know what Geico actuaries are doing here).
Yes, I could sell it, but ultimately there's no better value until EV's are cheaper in a few years. It's an $8k car with a new battery that will likely go another 120k miles at 43mpg with $5 gas prices...
Did you encounter any research on what the best shield would be? I still haven't re-shielded it.
> Did you encounter any research on what the best shield would be? I still haven't re-shielded it.
Lots, but as you an infer things have hanged sine '21, I think the best thing to do is go bak and read these threads [0], [1] and see what is available that has a peek window so you don't have to take it off when you do visual inspection for your smog test. And how the rattle mods were done, people were stuffing hokey pucks at one point.
Here is an example of what is happening in the bay area as you well know[2].
I wish I had the time to delve into it more, but sine I passed on getting the supply and scrapped my gen 2 it's not really the time-investment to see where an opportunity exists sine Toyota has been able to get more cats on the shelf, albeit it high mark-ups and some delays.
I hope you can keep yours on the road despite this streak of thefts, as they are utilitarian-speaking a solid car.
> There is no way in hell the buyers don't know the volume and source is complete wrong and criminal.
I sold my defective OEM Prius cat on EBay (I bought it knowing it was broken on my car and installed new in 2018) for parts to test how liquid the market was before I went looking for funding (post above) and doing DD and market research, it was rather easy and someone paid within two hours for the reserve price ($1000+).
Shipping was the biggest headache/cost of the whole process, but the guys on ebay buy Platinum, Platinum, Rhodium are still around.
While I don't deny some larger brokers at work, possibly OEMS, the fact is that everyone was grifting during covid, the stock market and real estate was soaring, corpo America (and the World) was flush wit bailout money etc... This wasn't even a blip on the radar of the billions being made.
How would one go about legally selling a catalytic converter?
I removed the exhaust from one of my vehicles about 15 years ago when I replaced the worn out engine and have had the old catalytic converter sitting around in my shop ever since.
The catalytic converter came from a 1992 model vehicle. The whole exhaust was replaced with a custom stainless steel exhaust front to back with a 50-state compliant catalytic converter in line from a well-known California supplier.
I intended to run it by the metal recycler several times but never made it and now that theft is such a huge problem I can see where just showing up with one to sell could be a problem.
I still own and drive the vehicle and could probably dig up documentation for the replacement exhaust system.
I'm glad to see a federal effort to stop these thefts. I had to install a cage around my kid's catalytic converter since there were thefts occurring from vehicles on their college campus.
I've sold lots, some of which were obviously chopped out of vehicles with a sawzall (vehicles that I legally owned, btw). They've always scanned my ID, took my thumb print, and mailed me the check after a couple of days.
This will probably be what I do. The metal scrap yards are in a town nearby where there has been a lot of meth lab activity so I think just the fact that I'm not one of those guys will help.
I wonder what the difference between the OEM converter from 1992 and the replacement from 2007 would be. The OEM converter is easily twice as large but the replacement is certified 50 state compliant and CARB approved from a manufacturer in California. I guess the technology improved or the ceramic composition changed.
Ford bet big on palladium in the 90s, so any Ford cat from an engine introduced before ~2002 is likely to have a relatively large amount of palladium in it. Some of their larger trucks have nearly 1/2 an oz, which was worth about $40 in 1992 and nearly $700 today (there was a palladium shortage during COVID and palladium briefly was over $3k/oz).
My Ford was federally licensed rather than CARB, so I'm required to replace it with an OEM converter. There is no ETA on when one will be available.
Wow. I should see whether there is a way to determine how much this catalytic converter is worth before selling it off to the scrapyard so I don't get ripped off.
If there is no ETA on when a new converter for your vehicle will be available are you not able to drive the vehicle at all? Is there no temporary option that can make it road-legal until the replacement arrives?
It seems like an exception should be federally issued for those caught up in this who have lost use of their vehicle. Dealers should be allowed to install a suitable replacement, non-OEM unit until an OEM is available. A note can be placed on the VIN with the state registrar that it has a temporary part so that it can be registered. I'd bet that if you did that and most vehicles showed to pass emissions with non-OEM parts in place that there would be a push to allow replacement with non-OEM parts.
Indeed, I can't (legally) drive it at all. The registration has expired and it is due for a smog check, which automatically fails with no cat.
Mine is an E450; There are a several companies that make an after-market cat for an E350 with the same engine. I contacted them and got roughly the same response from each:
> Unfortunately we do not have a catalytic converter for your vehicle.
Although it may seem that the vehicles are similar, in reality they could be
completely different when it comes to emissions. We've seen some cars that
are the same year, same make, and even engine size, that use completely
different catalytic converters. It has to do with the manufacturer and which
emissions tier they are registering that vehicle for. That being said,
although the E-350 maybe similar to the E-450, in reality the converters and
emissions level could be completely different and that's probably why we
don't have the certification for it. Sorry I couldn't help you out. Take
care.
This is probably the reason for all the fleet vehicles available in auctions that have no catalytic converter because theirs was stolen. The municipality or company that owned them found out that replacements would be nearly impossible to get so they opted to sell at a loss to someone who could afford to wait or who operated in a different state where OE replacement catalytic converters are okay for use. I believe that California and Colorado have banned converters that do not come from the manufacturer, effectively preventing anyone who had theirs stolen from using the vehicle legally even though aftermarket units are available that meet 50-state requirements.
Good luck. It may be an option for you to sell the E450 to an out-of-state buyer and replace it with a used or new vehicle. I don't know whether you can make that work for yourself.
I looked into this a year ago when I bought a house and the previous owner had left two catalytic converters in the garage from old project cars.
The conclusion I came to was that if I didn't look shady, the cats still had their mounting flanges on them (not sawed off), and no problem giving the recycling yard my contact info, I'd have no problems.
This is probably what I'll do with mine. I knew at the time that the catalytic converter should be recycled so I kept it. I just never got around to finding a place to take it. When I looked around, most of the places for metals are in the part of the county where we have all the meth-heads. I typically avoid that area. Some of them tried to steal my utility trailer from my driveway a couple years after I moved here. Luckily I heard them outside and ran them off.
Here in Texas, the law does give the right to defend property with deadly force[1]. And lots of people have guns. We are the #1 state on the list of gun ownership[2].
And catalytic converter theft is still very common. We are the #2 state on the list of catalytic converter thefts per 100k automobiles[3].
> 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 closer to Japan and also not having emissions and regular departures to Long Beach.
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 be available for skirting the reqs.
A couple of decades ago, there was one gas station in Tianjin you had to go to fill your tank (from empty) before doing your emission exam. Turns out the other gas stations were selling gas that didn’t allow them to pass, and it was an open secret in how to get your car to pass the exam by using proper gas.
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.
As in most of the US that have them barring California, which is Universal and why the BAR and OEMS has a 49 +1 system specifically for California, hence why the Prius was made for the California market yet suffering the most from this is ironic.
This what I found on emission on TX by county [0], and it looks a lot like Organ in that most don't do it except major metro areas.
Property is not worth a life. Not even the life of the person damaging it. Property can be replaced, a life can not.
Besides, there’s way too much margin for error in vigilante justice. That’s why we have trials, imperfect as even they may be. They’re certainly better than empowering everyone to be judge, jury, and executioner because they thought you might be committing a property crime.
Yeah, it definitely depends on the context. If someone stole my bag from my car they'd get a few ml of insulin which is practically worthless to them, but is absolutely necessary for me.
If you don't mind my asking, what medication do you take?
Totally understandable. It's also the biggest reason I have a pretty pseudo-random username here even though all my other usernames on social media are almost the same.
Generally speaking, no, of course not. But, if someone's breaking into your home in the middle of the night, you don't know what their intentions are to just steal some stuff or to rape and murder your family. There's a reason so many states have castle doctrine and such, and it's because there really are bad people out there.
Nonsense. Thievery will be greatly reduced when the consequences are doubt about your continued existence. Besides, if you continue to steal from people you are hurting them and their family. That has a price and that price should be up to your life.
How do you explain Texas then? Lots of catalytic converter theft and lots of gun ownership. Now you have two problems. You have to worry about somebody stealing from you, and you have to worry about somebody shooting you.
Property is not worth a life. Not even the life of the person damaging it.
Have you seen the film "Bicycle Thieves"? If someone's property is his livelihood one can have sympathies for those defending it with extreme measures.
My opinion would be at the point when a reasonable person would fear for their life.
For instance, if I own a vehicle and it is my primary method of escape, and someone starts fucking with critical systems like say the exhaust with a sawzall, I woud definitely start fearing for my life and the life of my family. Particularly when automobile is absolutely critical for survival, access to grocery/medical care etc, escape from say criminals in your yard operating sawzalls in commission of felonies, in much of America. If someone is in my yard fucking with my way to get away in danger, and they're physically tearing it apart with a sawzall, then I think it would be reasonable to allow defense of my family.
If someone is just stealing a hood ornament with their hands, then no maybe it's unreasonable to fear for your life.
With a phone I think it would depend more on context. Intentionally and without consent stealing / disabling someone's method of calling for help and emergency could make a reasonable person fear for their life if that person was also in the process of commission of felonies in your immediate proximity with a dangerous sawzall.
Then perhaps the punishment for every crime and infraction should be summary execution. Blow a stop sign? Execution. Over the speed limit? Execution. Stole an apple from the grocery store? Execution. Sounds like a perfect society?
Don't be ridiculous, there's nothing perfect about a society like that.
When you infringe on the rights of another human being, you put yourself at their mercy. Some people are not very reasonable. Legal or illegal, you just might find yourself attacked by that person, possibly killed. Even if you make laws against it, there's always that danger. Every time you violate the rights of another person you're risking your life, and it doesn't matter what the law says.
Uninvited fucking with critical systems of someone's primary method of transit/escape/transportation to medical care/grocery etc, especially with a sawzall under the body of the vehicle, causes a reasonable person to fear for their life.
I'm not killing anyone for screwing with my car, and I hope most folks feel the same way. Yes, it sucks. Yes, I'd be more than pissed. But I'm not going to murder another human for a property crime.
Self defense and defense of property is not murder. So many street trash shit on regular families just trying to get by precisely because of sympathy for dirtbags who shouldn't be drawing the same breath as normal people.
A lot of people seem to use "killing" and "murder" interchangably, though they are different in more than legal ways. A building collapsing can kill a person, as can a landslide, and an uncontrollably skidding car. A lion attacking a human and eating his organs is no murderer, and neither is that human for defending themselves by killing that lion before he can finish his attack. One human killing another does not necessarily have to be murdering them. Initiation of violence, and intent, determine the difference between killing and murder. Even self-killing and self-murder have their own words (suicide is one). Also crows; They gather in murders all the time.
Please consider applying the correct word to the context you wish to discuss.
You are not responding to the previous comment. If you want to say that you think killing someone because they took or damaged your things is justified, say that. GGP was clearly saying that doing so is murder (in my reading: normatively if not in the eyes of the law), so respond to that.
I think parent was referring to the definition of murder being "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another." Killing someone under lawful circumstances (such as self defense) is not murder, under this definition.
Getting pretty deep in the semantic weeds here though, and I feel obliged to say I have no horse in this race either way. Don't kill or murder me :)
It’s not murder if it’s legal. Just like killing in war isn’t murder. The guy stealing your catalytic converters defiantly deserves it more than the random dude in Iraq.
“Murder” is the name of specific crimes in many legal jurisdictions, but it’s also an English word that is commonly used in ways that overlap significantly but not perfectly with specific legal jurisdictions.
Don't kill anyone who is not trying to murder you. If you catch someone stealing your catalyst, you use your weapon to deter a violent action of his part, not to stop the theft by murdering him. The fact that he is willing to disregard societal property norms, already flags him as potentially dangerous, s he might enforce his criminal difference of opinion by using violence. That is why security is armed; Not to shoot the sucker in the back as he is absconding with your stuff. Unless your stuff could be used to harm others, then you might be justified in using reasonable force. Always try to de-escalate, but respond in kind.
> The fact that he is willing to disregard societal property norms, already flags him as potentially dangerous, s he might enforce his criminal difference of opinion by using violence.
The fact that people keep talking about gun ownership in Texas like it's a deterrent is odd. It's not like the criminals don't have weapons too.
Running a stoplight and making an illegal left turn into a kid running across the street, is unlwaful. Still counts as killing (legal term: manslaughter), not murder.
True, but that isn't relevant. I am saying it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it to be murder. By definition, it must be unlawful, but it also must be premeditated.
>True, but that isn't relevant. I am saying it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it to be murder. By definition, it must be unlawful, but it also must be premeditated.
IANAL, but I don't believe murder can only be if it's premeditated. In fact, IIUC, most murders are not premeditated.
I’m a gun-owning full pro-2A believer and I absolutely disagree with killing someone over stealing a catalytic converter. For fuck’s sake, prison or murder cannot be the only two options here.
Heard a story of a man who was under a car, cutting out a converter when the owner snuck up on him and smashed the butt end of a rifle right into the thieves balls. The man ended up losing both his testicles. No charges were filed. I like it. Perhaps another price should be your balls cutt off with a sawzall.
What's being discussed here is not a revenge killing, you catch someone doing it you're probably not going to gun them down, you're more likely to detain, call police and press charges, or chase them off. But if they come at you with their hacksaw...
I think the proper solution to this is that car manufacturers should be required to better secure these things. Putting a thousand dollars or more in such an easy to access place, requiring people to have some of their money sitting there like that, might as well tie a bow around it and set it on the hood.
There's a penalty for being stolen from though in those areas that do emissions testing, since you can't pass without a working converter, and the state won't replace it for you.
> Why is catalytic converter theft seemingly worse in the US/UK than in Europe/AU/NZ?
Many reasons, but chief among them are that EU is oddly really relaxed on emissions (hence diesel gate not being as big of an issue in it's own Country) and don't use the same equipment on their cars also because AU/NZ are big markets for used Japanese export vehicles that have exceeded its Shakin/Km limits in Japan and there isn't the local demand for these components as the laws don't reflect such strict standards.
By contrast those cars are not legal in the US due to emissions, until they fall out of the testing period: see used the massive headache created with the post Motorex Nissan Skyline market by-laws. The UK is odd because MOT and carbon tax things play a part, but it's way easier to register a RHD car from Japan if you're outside of London, and even within it if you know where to go. But both the US and UK also have lots of poverty based crime (theft) underlying their society.
Europe, but especially Germany, has many auto-manufactures writing their laws for them; and the higher ubiquity of diesel cars on the road in those markets as opposed to benzene (gasoline) means they cannot just make them all vanish without having immense backlash. So, they greese the right wheels, and things carry on: business as usual.
I won't touch the other reasons, but if you really want the nitty-gritty of how relaxed EU standards are read: Faster, Higher, Farther.
There is a reason it was some college kids in CA with a home-brew emission tester in a rented Tdi that butsted VW, and not the EU's climate Nazis/Green party in Baden-Wuttenburg. (I lived there and was subject to their stupid vanity based green washing laws as an environmental activist, so I can say that!)
My country has neither of those and the stealing of catalytic converters is very uncommon.
Please go right ahead though, seeing the failures of the punitive system in the US provides an exemplar of why my country should not go down that path.
You know how if you punish a dog, it doesn't really learn and get better? Humans are like that too.
Theft is heavily correlated with the economy. Arguably it's a canary in the mine - you can very usually tell what's going to happen in the macroeconomics of an area by just following crime statistics.
"Deterrence" has generally been found to be a pretty well-rooted myth. Majority of theft also happens by people who _don't actually know what the consequences are_. So just increasing them doesn't actually help.
If you can show strong evidence that prison is one of the best ways of reducing crime, then sure you've convinced me (and probably plenty others).
If you give a dog timely and consistent corrections, it really does learn. That's literally half the battle in house-training a dog. (Yes, you try to control and arrange success and praise when the dog does the right thing, but you also correct when it does the wrong thing.)
Positive-punishment reinforcement has shown to be less effective and more time consuming than positive-reinforcement training time and time again in dogs.
Humans might learn from positive punishment and deterrence, dogs are less good at it.
Great differences of wealth in the same area, coupled with a culture of "keeping up with the Joneses", and policies disabling/disincentivizing stable relationships, are good predictors for violence and theft.
The vast majority of crime is not random, easily punishable, statistically preventable, and if you live in constant low-level fear and vigilance about your possessions, it is because you are being fleeced to benefit a constellation of client classes. You may not be able to do anything about it, but your mind can at least rest easy that it's not incompetence, it is hierarchy, and you are at the bottom.
I am glad they caught this ring, of course, but this is not meaningful crimefighting. The only message it sends is: the pole to the top is a bit greasy.
I'm not a lawyer but I was on the grand jury and I was surprised to see that in my state of oregon transporting metals (like any metal) over some limit without a license is a misdemeanor. I was surprised at the time because I didn't understand the purpose, but I get it.
> They knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters and, through a “de-canning” process, extracted the precious metal powders from the catalytic core. DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
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 US, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where it's coming from.
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 wouldn't hold a refinery at fault for smelting down cars they got from a junkyard. They have no reason to suspect the junkyard is sending them stolen goods. Any resell business that deals with individuals is where the pressure belongs.
6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.
9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant.
10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the lost article.
But that's not how the law works in America. They have to prove the person had actual knowledge the property was stolen or should have known it was stolen. In this case it's easy because they had informants representing the property was stolen and the buyers still completed the sale. That's not always the case and can make these kinds of prosecutions harder. Cars are a little different because they are titled which makes disputes over ownership a lot more clear cut. And how was the refinery supposed to know to begin with? They never touched catalytic converters, they just got the metal powder from DG Auto. DG Auto was paid by wire transfer and from their perspective was probably not much different from any of their other scrap metal suppliers.
The point of punishing the rafinery is for them to figure out next time how could they know if this powder was stolen or not.
The role of companies is to undertake risks in exchange for profit. They have all the incentives and tools to lower the risk they took wherever possible. If company can't be punished for buying stolen goods then there's no risk and society has to take the risk and the costs. Which makes no sense because whole purpose of private companies is offloading risk from the hands of people that don't want it into the hands of people that do.
You cannot accidentally commit a felony - there has to be intent. What you are suggesting would substantially impede legitimate commerce (which by the way makes up the supermajority of all commerce) and would just result in actual fences coming up with fake documentation. As it stands now companies are basically expected to avoid deals where they see red flags around the provenance of the items. In neither indictment is the refinery mentioned as knowingly receiving the stolen metal powder. DG auto is basically the perfect target because they are a high level facilitator of stolen catalytic converters, they have connections to refineries, and unlike street level guys are probably hard to replace in the stolen catalytic converter supply chain. They even had a pricing app (https://dgauto.app) so prospective thieves would know which cars to target.
You cannot but laws around forfeiture are weird. If what you own was involved in a crime it can be forfeitured even though you yourself are not charged with anything. And yes, that includes money too. It's from drug laws but I'd say it would better applied here.
> What you are suggesting would substantially impede legitimate commerce
Maybe it should be a bit impeded if unimpeded led to national crime wave.
The government is ultimately the 'buyer' of the stolen goods. They are the ones that demand the catalytic convert be installed. Government created the risk for theft when they created this black market incentive. They have all the incentives and tools to lower the risk they took wherever possible.
Ivory isn't like platinum. There are tons of recyclers that actually sell the precious metals they have obtained in a legal way. Scrap yards can sell their converters to middle men, who then resell them to the refineries. That makes it super hard to differentiate between legal and illegal bulk resellers for the refinery. In this case, the middle men (dgauto) handled the first recycling steps (removing the metal core from the converters), thus making it even harder or impossible to trace the metals back to stolen parts.
Ivory, on the other hand, can be assumed to be illegally produced in 99% of the cases. If there are legal ways to even obtain new ivory, it's on the buyer to prove that their source is legal. That's not the case for catalytic cores.
They're being sold to you and everyone else in new catalytic converters, for one.
There are legitimate sources for these precious metals, and legitimate uses too. The parallel to ivory doesn't make any sense in that you don't have to kill Elephants to get Rhodium.
Cat from my RV was stolen over a year ago and I'm still wait-listed to get a new one. Apparently since it's federally (rather than state) certified, I can't use an aftermarket one, so just gotta wait until Ford makes one for me.
I do not have mileage anxiety. The 300m range is way more than I usually need, and right at the edge of how far you want to drive without stopping to rest.
Also, regenerative braking means you get a lot of power back when you go down the other side of a mountain.
If your converter is stolen, and a police report is filed, that vehicle is now emissions exempt for the rest of its life and can just have a straight pipe installed.
Now there’s a MASSIVE incentive on behalf of the state to solve the converter theft problem.
Given how few people who steal catalytic converters are ever punished for it, they should give these guys extreme punishments (eg life without parole or 50 years) to make the expected value of the punishment as high as they can.
>The 21 defendants are charged in two separate indictments that were unsealed today in the Eastern District of California and the Northern District of Oklahoma following extensive law enforcement arrest and search operations. In addition to the indictments, over 32 search warrants were executed, and law enforcement seized millions of dollars in assets, including homes, bank accounts, cash, and luxury vehicles.
I obviously don't have any sympathy for these likely criminals, but unless i misunderstand it sounds like people lost their homes (civil asset forfeiture) before being convicted of a crime which I'm not sure is something to brag about.
Nope, they are seized as evidence and are also subject to a claim for criminal asset forfeiture contingent on conviction; the criminal forfeiture claims are part of each indictment.
I think that if you paid for your home with criminal activity you should forfeit that to repay the victims of your crimes. If your legal and illegal stuff is together, tough shit.
That seems like an impossible standard. What happens if the criminal took a job that payed less because of their criminal activity, put the legal paychecks into house payments, and the illegal money into food and other consumables?
Welcome to the debate on pretrial freezing of untainted assets. Some justices agreed with your point given the fungibility of money and all but the majority disagreed in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_v._United_States. The houses that were seized were probably not their primary residences and may be returned if they win at trial (they probably won’t given that they have nearly every major player in the indictment on tape acknowledging that they have received stolen property).
I see your point, but imagine a situation where I robbed bank for a million dollars. Should I be able to use that million to pay a really good lawyer to defend me in court? And then after I'm feeling guilty I just throw my hands up and say "well I don't have that million anymore, good luck collecting it from me while I'm in jail."
At the very least, I believe the assets would be returned to them if it turns out they are found not guilty. So they are seized but not gone for good.
1: why do we need obsolete tech like catalytic converters when there is better tech for ICE to accomplish the same thing? (answer: because the government requires catalytic converters regardless, so no motivation to replace)
Have you seen the videos of catalytic converter thieves sliding under a vehicle, sawing it out and walking away nonchalantly with their easily-carried score in less than 2 minutes? I’ve seen multiple videos like that.
Have you seen any videos of people sliding under a Tesla and somehow sawing out the ~800 pound battery pack and walking away?
Much of the reason why catalytic converter theft is so widespread is that it’s quick and easy. Not so for swiping an EV battery.
Underneath a Tesla, and I imagine other EVs with similarly located batteries, there is a titanium plate. It is there to prevent road debris from penetrating the batteries and starting a fire, but it is precisely the sort of thing people install to prevent catalytic converter theft.
This is setting aside a larger problem: If you're under a car nabbing a catalytic converter you can quickly cut it loose, grab it, and run. If you're under en EV and manage to break the battery pack loose after several hours work, your remains will be pinned to the ground under that car later when the police come to investigate. People won't be stealing batteries and leaving EVs stranded for the same reason they aren't stealing diesel truck motors and leaving the trucks stranded.
It should be legal to run a straight-pipe if your cat gets stolen through no fault of your own. The economics incentives of the black market are there in the first place largely proximal to policy. As it stands .gov gets to light the candle from both ends, going after those failing emissions while also going after the cat thieves.
Edit: Love the helpful comments though telling poor people just to move out of the city if their cat gets stolen, as if moving is easy if you can't afford to replace a cat.
What incentives do you mean? Catalytic converters protect all of us from harmful compounds in exhaust, and I don't see why to fight thieves we need to breathe bad air.
At the very least it should be legal during the time you take to earn the money to pay for the replacement, and on the way to the shop, like it's done with getting your car registered.
Move out of the city. Many rural areas don't require emissions testing, so there's no way to stop people from omitting them. Beware noise ordinances, though.
As someone who lives in a rural area I and most of those who live in such places around here tend to frown on that sort of thing. We put a high very value on our clean air.
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 because they aren't sold and reused as is - the rare earth metals are extracted. Something your average criminal won't be capable of doing in their garage.