Columbia Heights residents Les and Barb Holen brought their two Mitsubishi Outlander SUVs to Gary’s Automotive shop in Fridley on a frigid Friday morning for some special crime prevention. They were taking advantage of a new local program called the Catalytic Converter Marking Event, aimed at reducing theft of automobile catalytic converters, a crime that has increased exponentially across the nation. In Minnesota alone, the number of thefts this year is up 425% from 2020. In Minneapolis, stolen converters average four per day.
The Holens were met at the shop by Fridley Department of Public Safety’s Detective Michael Smith, who is putting car owners together with auto shops to get their vehicles’ “cats” marked with serial numbers (and added to a registry), making the parts more difficult to sell to scrap yards or recyclers. Gary’s owner Larry Lavigne donated the shop space and tech time to mark the devices. The Jan. 7 event was the second time Gary’s hosted; a previous occasion was held in December.
Smith sat at the front desk of Gary’s waiting room, getting vehicle info from their owners, who waited in the rather small room, next to a table holding coffee and doughnuts, courtesy of Fridley Police. The marking process took just a few moments once the car was on the hoist. A mechanic applied a small adhesive-backed sticker to the bottom of the converter, which was then painted with an acid solution to etch the numbers into the metal. The label has a scan-able QR code that will show whether the cat was registered as stolen.
How would a potential thief know a car was thus marked? Lavigne held up a window warning sticker that goes on the inside of the car’s windshield showing that its converter has been marked, much the same as the small signs in front of homes announce the presence of burglar alarms.
The 1975 Clean Air Act required a 75% decrease in tailpipe emissions in cars sold in the US. One of the solutions was the addition of catalytic converters to the exhaust systems. The devices have small amounts of platinum, palladium and rhodium to chemically convert the noxious combustion fumes into less harmful gases. The amount of these metals in the converters varies by manufacturer and vehicle size, but average around 5-10 grams per unit.
Until recently, cat theft had been a relatively low-level crime in numbers, for a couple of reasons: the cats were hard to get, being under the vehicle and bolted or welded to the exhaust pipe; and the tiny amounts of precious metals recovered made it a crime for someone more desperate than say, a shoplifter.
The advent of the battery-powered reciprocating saw was the breakthrough burglar tool, much faster than a hacksaw and needing no extension cord.
The cat theft curve went from horizontal to vertical for one big reason: the market value of the precious metals. Typically, 80% of the production of platinum, palladium and rhodium (primarily from Russia and South Africa) goes to making converters. Current prices for platinum average $1,000 per ounce; palladium, $2,000; and rhodium, $15,000. While thieves get nowhere near these amounts, a recycled converter can bring $50 to $500 from a scrapper, depending on the type of converter and the integrity of the buyer.
In November, the Minneapolis City Council passed an ordinance that prohibits the sale of catalytic converters that are not attached to a vehicle, except for “bona fide” automobile repair businesses.
Not all cars have the same amount of metals in their cats, making some models more desirable for theft. The Toyota Prius, and Honda, Hyundai and Mitsubishi SUVs are favorite targets. Replacement cost for a stolen cat can range from $1,500 to $3,500; often, thefts result in additional damage to the remaining exhaust system. Insurance coverage varies depending on the policy; most comprehensive riders will pay most of the costs.
Smith said nearly 40 cars were marked at the event. Funding from the Minnesota Department of Commerce paid for RetainaGroup’s proprietary ID-system marking kits, including their International Security Register (ISR).
Below: Acid etching a catalytic converter. (Photo by Mark Peterson)
