This surveillance video showing thieves stealing nine catalytic
converters from school buses in New Jersey.
At this RV storage facility near Dallas they moved with breathtaking efficiency.
>> I guess they look at us a shopping mall of catalytic converters.
>> The converters are embedded in the exhaust systems of most cars and trucks,
making auto emissions less harmful.
They contain precious metals, including rhodium, palladium and
platinum whose value has skyrocketed in recent years.
>> As property crimes and theft continue to plague major cities
across the United States, poverty and economic conditions get cited frequently
as the causal force behind why it's happening.
But how do crimes like catalytic converter thefts impact Americans who
are already teetering on a financial cliff?
Unfortunately, there isn't enough focus or even study on that angle, and I think it's
a shame, because there are some misconceptions that should be challenged.
And to be sure, a lot of Americans are struggling financially.
An April report by CNBC, for instance,
found that close to 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
A major unexpected expense could ruin them.
And even more, roughly 70% said they feel stressed about their finances,
mostly due to inflation, economic uncertainty, and rising interest rates.
These statistics are the result of a broken system, and
there is no doubt about that.
Wealth has been redistributed to the top through deregulation,
corporate tax loopholes, taxpayer funded government contracts to private
businesses, and yes, corporate subsidies as well.
To make matters worse, our elected officials are aiding and
abetting the robbery as we speak.
What compounds the economic stress is how a growing number of Americans are becoming
victims of costly catalytic converter thefts.
And the trend has exploded since the start of the pandemic.
>> According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau,
the number of reported catalytic converter thefts increased from roughly 1,
300 in 2018 to more than 14,400 in 2020.
>> This is a crime most people can relate to.
Catalytic converter thefts are up twelve fold since 2019.
They really exploded during the pandemic, as the value of the rare earth minerals
inside them, including palladium and platinum, has gone way up.
So these things go for $1,000 on the black market.
>> The National Insurance Crime Bureau says twelve times as many catalytic
converters were stolen in 2021 compared to 2019.
The crime wave turning tragic last April.
Houston Deputy Sheriff Darren Almandarez was shot and
killed when he tried to stop thieves from stealing his converter.
>> According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, more than 52,000 catalytic
converters are stolen in the United States in 2021 or were stolen.
Replacing them ain't cheap.
The cost depends on the make and model of the car.
But if you're already living paycheck to paycheck,
even the lower end of the price spectrum is a disaster.
Consumer affairs reports that quotes for
our sample vehicles average from $900 to a whopping $4,500.
And guess what? Take a look at this chart,
which shows you the total average replacement costs for specific vehicles.
If your 2017 Honda Civics catalytic converter is stolen,
it'll cost you $4,414 on average to replace it.
It costs around $2,309 for owners of the 2019 BMW 740i.
Insurance might cover these costs,
depending on the type of plan you have and what your deductible is.
But one thing I know for sure is that we're all paying the price for this.
State Farm, which of course, provides auto insurance, put out some data recently that
noted how they were getting slammed with stolen catalytic converter claims.
They wrote Claims data from State Farm shows that between July of 2021 and
June of 2022.
Catalytic converter theft has grown 109% nationally in
terms of the number of claims filed compared to the previous twelve months.
During this recent period, more than 43,219 of these parts were stolen and
reported by State Farm customers, compared to just 2600
in the previous twelve months from July of 2020 to June of 2021.
If insurance companies are paying out claims for catalytic converter thefts,
you better believe all of our premiums are going up.
In fact, when mine recently did, I called and asked the insurance company why?
I have a clean driving record me and
my husband do not drive fancy cars that are expensive to insure.
In fact, we both have used cars.
I was told the rise in car related thefts in my area are to blame, fantastic.
Perhaps no two cities have suffered the consequences of
catalytic converter thefts more than San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In fact, there's been a 728% increase in stolen
catalytic converters over the last five years in LA alone.
According to city council members in the city of Los Angeles, about 8,
000 reported catalytic converter thefts happened last year,
up from 972 reported in 2018.
But that could very likely be an underestimate.
You gotta keep in mind that not everyone reports the theft to the authorities.
State Farm, though, makes some pretty interesting claims in the first half,
just the first half of 2022,
State Farm has received over 23,000 catalytic converter theft claims.
The data from the most recent twelve month period indicates that the ranking of
the top five states in catalytic converter theft is currently led by California.
With more than two out of ten close to 25% of claims being filed in the Golden State.
What makes matters worse is that the dramatic increase in these thefts,
in addition to supply chain issues,
has led to a shortage of available catalytic converters.
Making it a lot harder for people to replace the stolen part.
Catalytic converters have one of the longer lead times in the industry,
taking four to nine months to make.
And it's not just a couple of months either.
It really depends on what kind of car you have.
But one of the top targets of catalytic converter thefts happens to be
the Toyota Prius.
The Los Angeles Times called the parts department of a dozen Toyota
dealerships in Southern California.
And asked for the wait time for a catalytic converter for
the 2011 Prius, every service center said the part was backordered and
wasn't immediately available.
Most said the wait would be more than three months.
And get this in some cases, as long as eight, or nine months.
So not only is it expensive to replace the part, doing so
leaves workers without a car for as long as nine months.
That's devastating for
Americans who are already grappling with economically precarious circumstances.
And in sprawling cities like LA.
Workers who need to commute to work, as many do,
don't even have the option of public transportation,
since it's notoriously fragmented, slow, unavailable, and terrible.
After years of these thefts increasing and prevailing.
The Los Angeles City Council finally decided to act by voting on an ordinance
that makes it unlawful to possess catalytic converters without proof
of ownership.
On April 11th, the City Council passed an ordinance allowing police to arrest anyone
in possession of a catalytic converter for which they can't prove ownership.
It would also carry a one year jail sentence and a $1,000 fine.
I think this makes sense.
If you get caught in possession of stolen property,
there should be consequences for it.
The City Council voted 8 to 4 to approve the ordinance that requires a bill of sale
from the original owner with photographs, documentation from an auto body shop.
Or a verifiable electronic communication from the previous owner that
shows ownership has been relinquished.
One of the four city council members who voted against the ordinance was
Nithya Raman, who I voted for and currently represents my district.
I found her reason for voting no inadequate, nonsensical, and ignorant.
>> The things that really infuriates me is that we
have a company who makes the Prius that essentially
has a device on their cars which is super easy to remove.
It's basically the value of a MacBook, right,
that is put in a place that is incredibly easy to access in your car.
And then the vests related to this issue have essentially all of the costs of
that are given to us to bear.
Instead of them having to manufacture a car that actually is not so
easy to be stolen.
>> Yeah, that logic makes zero sense.
Nithya fashions herself as a democratic socialist.
Which means she should know that a corporation is not going to pay higher
costs to make harder to steal catalytic converters unless they're regulated and
forced to by elected lawmakers, by politicians.
They're not going to do it out of the kindness of their own hearts.
Their goal is to maximize profits, she knows that.
She also knows the likelihood that Congress even considers these regulations
is laughable.
I'd be surprised if it's even on their radar.
Besides which, it's not that easy to steal the part.
It usually involves two people.
One has to lift the car, and then someone else slides under the vehicle
to remove the sought after part with an electric saw.
Some car owners decided to install additional protection,
like a metal cage or shield.
But with the right tools, thieves have found a way to get through those too.
By the way, it's really easy to commit other crimes, like, let's say,
break into a house.
You could just break the window and enter that way, and then you can go ahead and
steal whatever you'd like.
But that would mean that Nithya Raman would place the blame on
the property owner, right?
Because the windows were just so easy to break.
The owners is on the property owner to, what, fortify their windows,
pay out extra costs for, I don't know, stronger glass?
It's just such a ridiculous line of thinking.
And what about the tens of thousands of street lights in Los Angeles?
Can we talk about that for a second?
So there are thousands of street lights in Los Angeles right now that do not work,
because thieves have been stealing their copper wiring to sell on the black market.
If you're driving in LA and you're wondering why streets and
neighborhoods are so dark, this is why.
So that's a picture I took just this morning in my neighborhood, and
you will see street lights all throughout Los Angeles looking exactly like that.
15 years ago, there would be around one to ten incidents of copper theft a year.
And that's according to Miguel Sangalang,
who has a great last name and heads the Bureau of Street Lighting.
He said 2022 saw the highest amount the BSL has ever
seen with 4,500 incidents of copper wiring theft.
A local NBC affiliate reported that there are at least 7,000 of
these street lights that don't work as a result of copper wire thefts.
Sangalang has the job of keeping the lights on.
He told NBC4 News that his job isn't as easy as it used to be.
A few years ago, a streetlight outage entailed replacing a burned out light
bulb, but now outages blanket entire streets.
That's because people are breaking into the access boxes in the sidewalk and
stealing and later selling the copper wire that's used to keep the lights on.
Sangalang also said that what's happening now is more akin
to having to rewire your house.
It's a large capital expense, and
it will very likely take years to fix as more lights go out.
So, Nithya, since the city made it so
easy to access the copper wiring, who's responsible for this?
It couldn't possibly be the thieves.
So is it the city?
Is it the taxpayer?
And of course, we all know that taxpayers will foot the bill just
like they foot the bill for everything else.
I guess it's another way of privatizing gains in this case for
criminals and socializing the losses for the taxpayers.
Raman could put her money where her mouth is and have every elected
lawmaker in the city personally provide the money for the repairs.
Since under her logic, the city is to blame, they made it so
easy to access that wiring.
What's even more laughable is how residents in LA are told to prevent
catalytic converter thefts by parking their cars on brightly lit streets,
since lights act as a deterrent to crime, hilarious.
Other Los Angeles city council members who voted on the ordinance
included Eunisses Hernandez.
She is brand new to the city council, just got voted in, and
she argued that the motion would not make our city safe.
Yeah, this isn't about safety.
This is about a crime that is costing ordinary people a lot of grief and
a lot of money.
But the no, this isn't going to make us safer talking point is a favorite
that gets regurgitated by politicians who just don't wanna do anything at all.
She doesn't want to prosecute thieves because even though Angelinos pay some of
the highest taxes in the country.
Those resources apparently can't be used to improve the lives of members of
the community.
She said that, quote, this ordinance is a costly one for the city.
It will lead to more cases for the city attorney.
It will lead to more money spent on courts and more money spent on public defenders.
How is that a good argument?
Great, please spend our resources on courts and public defenders.
Speedy trials are another problem we have.
Or the lack of speedy trials and
courthouse related shortages have a lot to do with that.
Finally, if you're a good and kind person, as many of you are.
And your heart goes out to those who may have committed these catalytic converter
thefts out of economic desperation,
please don't let politicians take advantage of your empathy.
Fact of the matter is, the people behind these thefts are not down on their luck.
Here's who they really are.
>> Justice department says they've taken down a nationwide crime ring involving
the theft of catalytic converters.
>> This is a national takedown involving the FBI, the IRS,
homeland security raids, and arrests in eight states.
21 arrests, all told,
as you said, forfeitures in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars.
And this is a distribution ring.
These people are accused of reselling catalytic converters they knew were
stolen, and they made a lot of money, so the feds have seized luxury cars.
One of these defendants actually has an Instagram account with a picture wearing
a necklace with a catalytic converter on it.
>> The defendants charged today are accused of buying the stolen converters
where they go for $1,000 on the black market.
One of the accused, Naveen Khana, posted a photo of a catalytic
converter necklace with a winking face emoji on social media.
Authorities rated his $1.7 million New Jersey home.
>> Authorities rated his $1.7 million New Jersey home the poor
people who have no choice but to steal our catalytic converters, come on.
Another crime ring also sold tens of millions of dollars in stolen catalytic
converters.
The Vang family allegedly sold over $38 million in stolen
catalytic converters to DG Auto.
And thank God that the DOJ and the FBI happen to be investigating and
catching these crime rings.
One thing that I've noticed, one commonality among the crime rings is that
they're doing real well for themselves.
They're living in nice houses, driving luxury cars.
And in the meantime,
city council members like Nithya Raman are basically telling us to kick rocks.
Because it's actually Toyota's fault that
thieves are stealing these costly catalytic converters.
It's pathetic.
And if progressives think that this kind of messaging and
this kind of ideology is gonna be appealing.
If you think that this is what's going to get us to a place where we could actually
pass something as important as single payer health care, you would be mistaken.
Because this is the kind of stuff that makes people really reconsider their
political affiliations.
Think about that.