City Council member Heather Nesemeier lost the catalytic converter of her 2007 Prius to thieves who stripped the car when parked in her driveway. (Photo/Nancy Hanson)
Nancy Edmonds Hanson
The hottest part of your car may not be its sleek silhouette or the power under the hood. To unscrupulous admirers in the dead of night, it’s an unseen something deep in its underbelly … one that an adept thief with the right blade can remove in less than a minute.
It is the catalytic converter – the “cat” – and it’s literally more precious than gold.
Last week, the Moorhead City Council gave unaninmous approval to the first reading of a new law that makes possession of uninstalled units a misdemeanor. The decision marks the first step in trying to counter the wave of losses, here and elsewhere in Minnesota, that has swept the state to 5th place in stolen auto parts, according to the insurance industry.
New data show that “cat” thefts have increases 1,171% nationwide since 2019. Police Chief Shannon Monroe reported to the council that the department had five theft reports in 2020. In 2021, the number of calls climbed to 31. Says Detective Nick Schultz, that number doesn’t represent the full scope of the problem, since some of those calls involved multiple thefts on the same lot from fleets of company vehicles.
Council member Heather Nesemeier knows firsthand the havoc those thefts can play. In January 2020, she came out of her home south of MSUM and slid into her 2007 periwinkle blue Prius. Her car, a hybrid, was usually whisper-soft, she reports. “But when I started it and drove to the end of the driveway, it sounded just awful.”
Heather’s car, parked for weeks in her own driveway, had been a victim of “cat” theft. Only afterwards did she learn that she drives the number-one choice of converter thieves. It cost $1,300 to replace the Prius’s catalytic converter and attached parts that had also been ripped away. The amputated part itself, according to the police chief, probably netted the thief between $50 and $150 when sold to a scrap dealer in a larger city or online.
Catalytic converters have been part of the exhaust systems of most cars, pickups and trucks sold in the U.S. since the 1970s. They scrub the vehicles’ emissions of carbon monoxide and nitric acid, converting it to carbon dioxide and water. To accomplish this, the breadloaf-sized units employ a trio of precious metals – platinum, paladium and rhodium, all literally more precious than gold.
According to Schultz, the spike in thefts precisely paralleled the abrupt rise in the minerals’ prices. Rhodium, the priciest, has sold for as much as $26,000 per ounce at a time when gold was valued at $1,800. The amounts of the rare elements in a single “cat” are tiny, though; quantity is the key to thieves’ success. The plague is so widespread that an easily aquired cellphone app advises ambitious “cat” poachers of the makes and models of vehicles whose units contain the largest amounts of the metals.
Monroe told the council that his officers have spotted back seats and trunks full of converters during traffic stops but until now have had no recourse. The devices have no serial numbers, and possession has not been illegal. Detective Schultz adds that the crimes themselves are extraordinarily hard to investigate: “It takes only a couple minutes. Most of the time, there’s no evidence left behind. Even if there is video surveillance … well, we all know what that looks like. You can sometimes see if the same person commits several crimes, but it doesn’t help much in identifying him.”
Criminalizing holding uninstalled units, like the one being enacted in Moorhead, seems the most promising approach. Those stopped with one or more uninstalled converter in their possession will be charged with a misdemeanor.
But identifying the rightful owners also remains an issue. Several approaches have been tried, Schultz notes, including engraving ID numbers or adding them with paints that can withstand the high heat of the exhaust system, but with limited success.
A more promising approach has been developed by the Minnesota Department of Commerce. It involves a numbered sticker that employs a high-heat chemical reaction to burn the number – usually the last eight numbers of the vehicle’s VIN – into the surface. The labels are now being tested in the the Twin Cities.
Schultz and other law enforcement officers worked with State Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, during the 2021 legislative session to pass a statewide law criminalizing possession of uninstalled converters without a dealer’s receipt. Though the bill did not make it through the session, legislators did direct the Department of Commerce to investigate solutions, leading to the labels being tested today.
In the meantime, council member Nesemeier and her colleagues worry not only about stemming the tide of thefts, but are also concerned about the vehicle owners they sideline. “Think of the impact on those whose vehicles are damaged. I was lucky. We were able to manage the cost of repairs. But for many people, that’s really tough. College students and working families have all their other bills to pay, and repairs certainly aren’t cheap. The theft may eliminate their only transportation to school or work. If you can’t afford to get it fixed, what do you do?”
Schultz advises a few common-sense measures keep your wheels safe: First of all, park inside if you can. A spot in a well-lit outside area is second best. Set up a video camera to document incursions. Add an anti-theft cable device if you can find one. Paint or engrave an ID number on your converter, which may enable you to get it back if the perpetrator is caught.
“Without a law, we couldn’t do anything about even a trailer full of ‘cats,’ even though we knew very well what was going on,” the detective points out. “Moorhead’s law is a start. But these thefts aren’t just a local problem. They’re happening all over. What we really need are statewide measures to ramp up enforcement everywhere.”
