#CarCrime

Looking at the news, it’d be easy to think that catalytic converter theft is carried out by a wily group of bandits under cover of night, but that’s not always the case. A Philadelphia-based towing company is in hot water after almost a dozen people ran a theft ring that racked up millions in stolen catalytic converters. 

We know catalytic converter theft is a problem and that thefts have risen since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A report out of Los Angeles shows just how much of a pain it can be to have your converter swiped, especially if you drive a Toyota Prius.

Volvo has reportedly filed a new patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that would add digital protections designed to prevent modern car thieves from doing what they do. While the golden age of car thievery typically involved criminals skulking around in the dark to find an isolated model they could jimmy open and then hot-wire, today’s thieves tend to linger in crowded parking areas our outside homes with computers that scan and capture the codes being transmitted remotely from the key fob to the car.

Here's a story involving shady behavior and dealerships that is a flip of what we've covered lately. In this case, it's a would-be customer screwing the dealership.

Five people in Texas, two of whom work for UPS, have been charged with trafficking cocaine via shipping packages.

We all know the scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where Ferris and Cameron tried to roll back the mileage on Cameron's dad's prized Ferrari -- an attempt that ended with the car shooting out of the garage and into a ravine.

Car thieves broke into a car dealership in Queens, New York over the weekend, snatched the keys to 26 vehicles, and took them home.

Columbus, Ohio City Attorney Zach Klein said earlier this week that he intends to file a lawsuit against Hyundai and Kia.

A Wichita car dealership has been banned from selling cars in the state of Kansas.

As if living through a pandemic and endless speculation that the United States is sliding away from democracy weren’t bad enough, some people decided that 2020 and 2021 were great times to start stealing catalytic converters at a record pace. The issue has been bad enough to make national news several times, but the Department of Justice just announced a major bust that could at least slow things down for a while.

With catalytic converter theft having risen by 300 percent across the United States through the summer of 2021, regions of the country that have seen crime rates dwarfing the already brutal national average have started to introduce laws designed to prevent the issue from getting any worse.

On Sunday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed new legislation designed to prevent catalytic-converter thefts. The auto part has become a preferred target for criminals, especially on the West Coast, due to its high content of precious metals and relative ease of removal. Last year, more than 18,000 units are believed to have been hacked off in California alone and the issue only seems to be getting worse.

Following an internet trend that proliferated on TikTok over the summer, there’s been an alleged surge of vehicle thefts targeting Kia and Hyundai products. The issue reportedly began with a video tutorial recorded in Milwaukee showing how to steal the cars by shoving a connected USB cable into a cracked-open ignition. But the resulting problem has spread to major cities across the country, often with rowdy teens – known as “ Kia Boyz” – taking random cars for little more than joy rides.

As you may have already heard, catalytic converter thefts are on the rise for a myriad of reasons. Crime is up in general, the economy is in rough shape, they're pretty easy to steal, difficult to track, and the price of certain metals found inside the emission-limiting devices (e.g. platinum, rhodium, and palladium) absolutely skyrocketed after global shutdowns stifled production. The issue has actually gotten so bad that even relatively small cities are reporting organized theft rings getting busted with piles of catalytic converts on hand.

This is a weird one. And a bit confusing. Stay with us as we try to explain.

ABC7 in the San Francisco area has quite the story.

It involves a Batmobile replica, law enforcement, and cross-country travel. Oh, and taxpayer dollars.