Over the past six weeks, the city of Middletown has seen 10 catalytic converter thefts, a significant jump from before, according to Police Lieutenant Jeffry Thoelen.
These crimes were committed randomly on the street or in a public parking lot between midnight and five o’clock, he told The Epoch Times on Nov. 28.
Some were captured on public and private cameras.
Thoelen said of the suspects, “They drive around, they get under a car, and they use a battery-powered saw. They are in and out—like two minutes—and they move on to the next one.”
He said he believed a local criminal ring was responsible.
The suspects didn’t target any brands or models, but they did seem to favor cars made between 2000 and 2010, which have a higher concentration of valuable metals such as platinum and palladium, he added.
A catalytic converter helps reduce the toxic level of car exhaust gases by pushing them through a honeycomb of rare metals and cleansing them through chemical reactions.
Police officers chased two potential suspects on foot on two occasions, but terminated the pursuits both times due to safety concerns, according to the November police commission meeting.
The Middletown Police Department has enhanced special patrol in response to the catalytic converter thefts; it also works with Hudson Valley Crime Analysis Center and the nearby Wallkill Police Department in solving the crimes, Thoelen said.
Nationwide, catalytic converter thefts have risen significantly following the pandemic and the subsequent supply chain disruptions, which greatly increased the value of metals.
The claims for catalytic converter thefts jumped three-fold in 2020, according to data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
An October report by State Farm, the nation’s largest insurer of automobiles, says that catalytic converter thefts continued to rise in the first half of 2022, almost doubling the year before.
It costs around $2,500 to replace a stolen catalytic converter, which could be sold for between $20 and $350 on the black market, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association.
On Nov. 2, the U.S. Justice Department announced the takedown of a nationwide catalytic converter theft ring, with arrests, searches, and seizures in nine states, including New York.
To avoid thefts, Thoelen suggested that residents park their cars in garages instead of on the street; residents can also spray-paint the converters to make them less valuable to potential thieves.
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