If you've had to buy a car over
the last year or even longer,
you know how hard and expensive it's been,
and now another wrench in the works.
A big spike in thieves targeting catalytic
converters from vehicles on car lots.
It's damaging those cars and delaying
sales of the converter is a part of a car,
truck or SUV that's attached to the muffler,
and it makes it emit less harmful fumes.
They use precious metals
like platinum and rhodium,
and that's why thieves target them
because they can be worth up to.
500 bucks each stealing one can
cause thousands of dollars in
damage to the targeted vehicle.
And it doesn't just happen on car lots.
People who live in Allentown,
for instance,
recently posted on social media about
a recent series of thefts there over
the last few weeks and the state
DMV commissioner told 2 on your side
that these types of incidents have
more than tripled in recent years,
particularly at those new car dealerships.
We understand why the bad guys
are doing this. The street.
Value of these catalytic
converters or anywhere from you,
know 200 to $500.00 a pop.
You know that's a lot of
money and and for instance,
you know some of this precious metal that
are within the catalytic converter for,
for instance, rhodium.
Rhodium goes for about $15,000 per oz,
so you can see why you know
there's an underground market on
this and we're doing everything
we can to protect New Yorkers.
The DMV is working with six dealership
associations across the state
to try to help protect drivers,
and that includes the Niagara
Frontier Auto Dealership Association,
right here locally and
joining us live to talk about.
This is the President of that organization,
Paul Stasiak. We appreciate your time Sir.
It's good to see you.
I know that this is not a new problem,
but can you tell us how you've been
seeing kind of this uptick lately?
Especially at those car dealerships with
these catalytic converters being stolen.
Michael, thanks for having
us on and talk about this.
Yeah, you hit the nail right on the head.
This is not something
that's new but it isn't.
It is an elevated state for U.S.
law enforcement and just about
anybody who's involved in the auto
industry and and outside the industry.
We work closely with all the law
Office law office agencies and
it's it's it's just rampant.
It it's a new wave of theft that
that's in and out so quickly.
It's very tough to to contain.
A moment ago we heard
there from Mark Schroeder,
who is the state DMV Commissioner.
Of course, he's a Western New
Yorker who now has that job and
he mentioned how the state is
trying to help the dealerships,
and I know they have this, you know,
partnership with your organization.
How do you fight back against
this kind of problem?
What is the work that's
taking place right now?
Well it's it's a multi pronged approach.
Mike, you know we are working with
law enforcement. They can't get there.
These things can take a catalytic
converter off of vehicle and under
3 minutes they can take ten of them.
Obviously within minutes and let the
public know this is not just occurring
at dealerships, it's occurring.
The charitable groups such as Feed
More Emergency Vehicles, school buses.
We've had parents calling us and
have their catalytic converters
robbed at a high school graduation.
While there was a soccer game.
Going on while they were in the building,
so this is this is a new trend that we
all have to start to embrace the old
adage if you see something, say it.
If you know something's wrong,
don't let it go by the wayside.
So if people are out and they
see activity around cars,
don't assume that they're a mechanic.
Don't assume they own the car.
Ask the question,
call the police and and we got to try to
trigger the response as quickly as possible.
Paul, we understand that there are these
etching kits that some dealerships are now.
Using so that they can identify
the catalytic converters,
at least on the cars that the dealership.
So maybe they can identify them if
they are stolen and somebody takes them
to to try to make money off of them.
Can you tell us about that
effort and how successful?
Maybe that's been and then also you know
those kits are not available to the public.
We mentioned, you know the thefts
that happened in Allentown recently.
You just told us about the, you know,
the graduation and all these places
where people are having these stolen
from the cars they've already purchased.
What should just normal you know Joe?
Watching right now know about
how he can protect his car.
Well, obviously the easy thing to say is
parking in the garage getting safe area,
but it's not that easy.
We've worked in concert,
we've worked in partnership with Mark
Schroeder, Commissioner Schroeder,
and DMV New York State Police,
the Chiefs associations.
They've come up with an acid etching kit
simply takes a few minutes to to etch in
a serial number on a catalytic converter.
The purpose of that is if this
catalytic converter gets.
It's robbed off a vehicle.
They have to take it somewhere to
cash in on their on their bounty.
They would normally take it to a scrap
yard or metal yard to try to sell it.
If the scrap yard sees something
with a serial number,
we know the card came off of.
We know where it's coming from.
That person now has a little better
of an opportunity at the salvage yard
to determine that this thing didn't
come out somebody's personal vehicle.
They'll be able to log in and see it
came off Michael's vehicle and not
the person who's trying to trade in.
Five or six catalytic converters.
It's a deterrent.
It's not going to stop them
from cutting it off,
but if someone were to see some
identification on a major component
like a catalytic converter,
it may prohibit them from going to your lot.
We're doing in our dealerships
because there's a lot of cars there,
but when we start putting the
etching on the Cadillac converters,
we think it'll deter the candidate from
trying to to to to hand in something
that's a hot piece of property.
Paul, before I get to my last
question just to follow up real fast.
If somebody watching right now
has had their their stolen,
how do you know like it's you'll
hear it right with your car.
Yeah, you'll, you'll know immediately.
You'll think your muffler came off.
The loud noise will be obnoxious.
The smell will be onerous. Believe me.
The minute you turn your car on,
you're going to know something's wrong.
It's just that that easy to detect
that it's it's not operational.
Yeah, that's good to know before
we let you go. One final question.
We've been following this story and our
viewers just can't get enough of it.
It's been most read on our website.
This incident that happened
over the weekend at the West.
Her Toyota dealership in Orchard Park.
We initially reported that
10 cars were stolen there.
We're now told it's up to 16.
I know that you're not part
of that investigation,
but what do you make of that?
And is that?
Is that as crazy as it seems
to us when we hear it or or
just stuff like that happens?
Sometimes the car dealerships.
Like I, I'm not at liberty to
talk about that. You're right,
it's not my investigation at dealership
has tremendous amount of of security
cameras of processes in place,
so it it there are vehicles robbed
everywhere across the country to
have that many is is an aberration.
It's not a norm which you're now
reporting is most of those vehicles
I think have been recovered.
The process that Western all of
our dealerships file is pretty
rigid with the key control system.
You'll see many.
You'll see multiple cameras
in our dealerships so and they
can determine what what, what,
the serial number is on a on a dollar bill,
and I think that's going to
help law enforcement go forward.
The risk is that people that don't
have cameras on their businesses
and I'm not in the business
of promote camera business.
But this is a time.
It's a different change,
different culture.
So what happened at Western could
happen anywhere could happen in a
Walmart parking lot for that matter so.
It it's sad, tragic,
but it's a sign of the times.
Regrettably,
yeah, you talked about how quickly
these people can steal the
catalytic converters off cars.
Clearly they can steal cars pretty fast too.
So man, it's a sign of the times.
I guess Paul Stasiak as
president of the Niagara Frontier
Auto Dealership Association.
Thanks so much for coming on.
It's good to see
you. Michael, thanks for covering
this story. It's that important. Thank
you, Beth. Thank you very much.