Catalytic converter thefts up as precious metal prices skyrocket
COLUMBUS — Maybe because of the rising price of rare metals or maybe because they’re just easy targets, but Columbus police say they have seen a surge in catalytic converter thefts this year.
Catalytic converters, which help to reduce toxic gas emissions by converting pollutants into less-toxic gases, can be sold for scrap metal for as much as $450 depending on the vehicle, according to ScrapMetalBuyers. com. Under Ohio law, only one catalytic converter per person per day can be sold to a scrap metal dealer.
Columbus Police Sgt. Dan Edelsberg said the surge in thefts is on the police’s radar and the covert support team is actively investigating. He said the rise is widespread,though he could not provide specific numbers.
“It’s not even isolated to our jurisdiction,” Edelsberg said.
Detective Ben Crawford of the Columbus Police support unit, which supports detectives in their investigations, said the recent uptick in thefts has targeted businesses with fleets of vehicles, such as box trucks, and it’s often been happening overnight. But the thefts are occurring wherever there is access to vehicles, he said.
“These guys are hitting people at work, when you’re in a parking lot — I can’t tell you how to avoid it because they’re just hitting everywhere,” Crawford said. “The value is making too much money for them to worry about the risk.”
The precious metals inside the converter, including palladium, platinum and rhodium, are extracted when converters are sold for scrap — and they are worth top dollar.
The asking price for palladium March 1 is over $2,400 per ounce, while rhodium is going for $27,500 per ounce — more than double its asking price in March 2020, according to MoneyMetals. com. Platinum is selling for nearly $1,200 per ounce.
Rhodium is a byproduct of platinum and is only mined when companies are turning a profit on platinum mining — which they are not, according to a recent article in the Washington Post. A glut in the platinum market coupled with the pandemic caused the rhodium’s price to skyrocket, and mining representatives expect the high value to persist until 2025 at least, the Post reported.
Getting a new converter isn’t a bargain either. Andy Chapin, owner of Chapin’s Auto Services on the North Side, said it can cost between $300 and $500 for a simple replacement, but when converters are cut out of a vehicle, an entire exhaust system might need to be replaced — a $1,500 fix, he said.
Petty’s Auto Electrical Services in downtown Columbus said the replacement also depends on the kind of car and could range from $800 to $2,000.
Chapin said he hasn’t seen a lot of stolen converters, as people who steal them usually hit and move on to another area, Chapin said. Petty’s has serviced two vehicles with stolen converters in the last six months, the shop said.
Crawford said policing these thefts is difficult.
“One of the issues we face is if somebody steals your catalytic converter and we stop them five hours later and they have a catalytic converter in the vehicle, we can’t trace that — there’s no numbers on them, they don’t stamp like VIN numbers or anything in them, so once it’s stolen, it’s usually pretty hard to recover,” he said.