Where Do Stolen Catalytic Converters Go?

greetings viewers i am eric the car guy and this is my etcg1 channel and here on etcg1 we talk about stuff and i start things off with hey if it's your birthday happy birthday please enjoy this digital cake today i'd like to revisit a topic in a previous video and that was when the thieves came and stole the catalytic converter off of the 2005 honda element that i just purchased i caught them on the shop cameras right out in front of the shop took them well five minutes to check out the business next door and all the vehicles that were over there came over to my business checked out all my vehicles decided that that honda element was the one they wanted they stole that catalytic converter and drove out of the lot all within five minutes so checked out two different businesses had a catalytic converter in hand and drove away with it in five minutes so they're very practiced at what they do and it's unfortunately easy money i'd like to follow up a little bit in this video about some research that i've done on this issue and i think it's a little deeper than just the thieves themselves but let's start off with why they're stealing these converters in the first place as i've mentioned before catalytic converters contain three precious metals often and that's platinum palladium and rhodium now palladium and rhodium especially right now are going for stupid money and that's because of a worldwide shortage and also the demand is very high because catalytic converters are things that they put on all motor vehicles practically that are manufactured now in addition to that these metals mainly come from south africa from what i found out and their mining operations were actually quite greatly impacted by the covid virus and as a result the world's supply of palladium and rhodium is scarce so as a result recyclers have cut stepped in and people are recycling catalytic converters in order to get the raw materials to make new catalytic converters just to put it in perspective i think the price of rhodium or something like now is like seventeen thousand dollars an ounce and i'm not kidding when you look it up i mean it changes every day but there is high demand across the world for these metals and that's the reason why catalytic converters right now are the hot commodity and it really spiked right around september or august of 2020 and the reason for that was because like i said there was a worldwide shoulders of these medals thus driving up the prices and making them valuable therefore making them a commodity enough so that people go out and steal them now i've sort of looked into it and i i surmise that they're getting anywhere between one to three hundred dollars per converter that they're turning in beyond that i'm thinking the people that are buying these converters have to be making money somehow so that one to three hundred dollars they're giving away i suspect they're getting paid two maybe even three times as much of that on their end so in other words they're motivated to buy the converters which in turn motivates thieves to go out and steal them once again themes are thieves or scumbags but they're not the whole part of this problem in my mind part of the problem is the demand but more importantly i think it's the people that are buying the converters from these thieves i mean think about it you got a guy that walks in drops down 10 catalytic converters on the counter and all of them are cut off like this like this is the front pipe to the catalytic converter that they removed from that element that was out in front of the shop they just cut it off with a sawzall if you're a scrap dealer or something like that and you see this and this person may not obviously be from a repair shop or anything you're just giving them cash no questions asked which let's face it i think you know what's going on at this point and i think you're ignoring it just because you want to put money in your pockets in the same way the thieves are doing it but then there's another layer to this so i looked into it and there are a few catalytic converter recycling plants around the country i know like in the new york area there's a big one and then the california southern california there's also another big one but what they do is they bring in these batches of catalytic converters and they process them and they start with something called decanning which i thought was kind of interesting so they take the entire converter here's one i took off of v6 that i was working on on the honda odyssey now this one's completely empty but you can see it's intact anyway they take this and they put it through a machine that basically beats it to a pulp and breaks everything apart on the inside now many catalytic converters in fact this came from the inside of the one that i just showed you have a ceramic substrate this is a ceramic structure on the inside of the catalytic converter which they take those precious metals the platinum palladium and rhodium and coat the inside of this and these have a reaction with the exhaust gases thus reducing emissions but this right here is the money and they need to get to this so they break all this down into little bitty bits and run it through a conveyor belt and they got this cool one process i saw had this cool like magnetic drum that was over the top of the conveyor belt and pulled out all the ferrous metal none of these metals are ferrous metal i believe anyway pull out all the ferrous metal which is like the casings to the catalytic converters then the rest is sent off to be processed and some processes involve like a chemical process some of them involve heat but basically they break it down and take all the precious metals out of this stuff and out of the converters and then turn around and resell it or some companies actually make catalytic catalytic converters so not only do they recycle them but they also make them so they take those raw materials that they just got turn around process them into new products and send them out the door so my conclusion with all this was a couple of things that are helping to perpetuate this well first and foremost it's the price of those precious metals and if there's money to be made well unscrupulous people will come out of the woodwork and find a way to take advantage of that and i think it's those middlemen those those scrap dealers and things that are ignoring the fact that you know this guy obviously doesn't have a repair shop or anything and you know here he is setting all these catalytic converters out of my counter and i'm just going to give him money and not care because i'm also going to make money or it could be even farther than that it could be organized crime to where you know they have the thieves and the thieves take it to their processing or whatever and they have their connections and they're able to get their money that way or a third option is like i said there's a world demand for this stuff and i wonder if there's a rail container or rail containers plural that gets stuff full of these stone stolen converters and they get shipped off to some other country to be processed and those precious metals to be used i can't exactly point fingers anymore i'm just doing internet research but this is basically what i found out there has been a move to combat this the money trail if you will certain states and certain municipalities have enacted laws that limit the i think the amount of catalytic converters that you can sell also that you have to submit a photo id in order to sell a catalytic converter some proof of provenance i think along the way in order for you to do it i even read somewhere that there was something about rather than paying somebody cash for a catalytic converter what they would do is they would put a five-day hold on that money and transfer it directly into a bank account i think those types of things do will help deter the theft if if these can't walk away with cash money for something then they have to go through a bank account and a paper trail i think they're less apt to to do that i also reached out to my friends at pull apart who own a nationwide salvage car operation so and you know i've done videos with them in the past i've gone to their salvage yards and you know pulled parts out of their yard i even got my latest civic from from a pull apart i asked them about this catalytic converter thing and they said to me it's kind of like fight club you don't mention catalytic converters because first of all according to the clean air act you cannot sell used catalytic converters so if you're a repair shop or if you're a salvage yard you cannot sell a used catalytic converter to somebody you have to purchase new and that means that you either have to go with the original equipment or with the aftermarket most people go with the aftermarket because they're cheaper in fact this green honda element that's up in the air behind me that did not have the catalytic converter stolen i'm pretty sure that that's an aftermarket converter and i think that's why they avoided it i think they were looking for the original equipment one that was worth a bit more pull apart will not buy catalytic converters from people bringing them in off the street additionally when they take in a vehicle as a scrap vehicle during their intake process the catalytic converters are removed in other words they cut them off of the exhaust and send them in for themselves so they're not out in the yard for the customers to pick now they take those off first along with removing all the fluids from the vehicle and the ac refrigerant and all that stuff before it ever goes out into the yard for people to pick whatever they want off of it some scrap yards won't even deal with it and they avoid the issue altogether and that may be best in the long run especially now but there are places and i even found a couple of places online facebook marketplace is another place which there's almost no questions asked to where you don't even have to walk into a physical place you can send in your catalytic converters in fact i even found one place that has videos and information showing you what catalytic converters are valuable and which which are the most valuable catalytic converters that are out there and what you need to do in order to send them into them for them to process them and and pay you for them now granted you know legitimate people like myself have catalytic converters that we've removed from vehicles and well you know why not get a little extra cash in a situation like that but taking the in these converters that are obviously cut off of vehicles i mean that's that that's what gets me it's obvious that not a lot of time and effort was taken to remove that catalytic converter and if somebody has several of them to me that's kind of suspect you know i i would certainly think twice in that situation and try to avoid it even if there's a buck to be made but that's just me bottom line is this the precious metals that are in catalytic converters are worth big money right now there's a high demand in the world and there's low supply therefore people are going to continue to go out stealing them hopefully we'll be able to enact some laws and we'll be able to catch some thieves and and help alleviate the problem but i think until those prices come down or something changes that we're still going to continue to suffer like this and once again for any of you that have experienced this that aren't a mechanic and you're not able to put it up on a lift and fix it yourself i i feel for you you know because suddenly you're saddled with thousands of dollars in repairs that you didn't expect or anything and at times when times are tough and that may also be contributing to the problem if i'm honest something i think that's worth mentioning here and that came up in the course of my research was how to protect yourself from uh catalytic converter theft to begin with and one of those things is a catalytic converter security system which ironically not a couple weeks before i had my catalytic converter stolen off a honda element i did a video about installing a catalytic converter security system on a honda element just not that one where it was stolen obviously i'll link that video down in the description and they have uh security systems available for other makes and models as well another thing that they suggested was parking in well-lit well-trafficked areas if it's unavoidable park it inside if it's at all possible but if that's not possible try to park in well-lit areas that are monitored by cameras which you know it only takes them like two to three minutes to steal that converter so it's it's hard to catch them in the act not that it hasn't happened but that's one of the things that they suggested additionally another thing that was suggested was actually engraving your vin on the outside of the catalytic converter there are no identifying markings on most catalytic converters that say that that catalytic converter goes with your vehicle so if you add your vin or even your license plate number onto that catalytic converter say that thief is caught somewhere down the road with your catalytic converter in the trunk of their vehicle the law enforcement at that point can actually take that number track you down and say hey was your catalytic converter stolen if you say yes that proves the theft so that actually helps law enforcement as well another thing that was brought up and i'm not sure how viable this one is is to paint the catalytic converter with high temperature paint and they say that there's that they would the thieves would need to clean that off in order to turn that catalytic converter in although i i don't know about that but i would i might go the engraving route or even better a catalytic converter security system um or something of that nature and if you do do the engraving try to do it as close to the catalytic converter as possible and don't do it on the external heat shielding because that can be removed try to do it on the inner metal part and do it as close to the inside of the converter as you can possibly get it someplace that they can't cut off and there goes your identifying markings but i hope that information is helpful to you as far as how to protect yourself from theft in the first place but all that being said i i did my research and to me i think organized crime unscrupulous buyers and a world market that seems to be hungry for these metals and not caring where they seem to get them is the reason why catalytic converters are being solar right now if you have any input i'd love to hear about it down in the comments i'm also going to put links in the description to additional information i found a ton of stuff so if you want to check that out including a video about the processing catalytic converters all that stuff i learned a bit but anyway i'll put links to that information down in the description along with a link to ericthecarguy.com which is where i ask you go if you have automotive questions thank you so much for watching today be safe have fun stay dirty and i will see you next time you

Channel: ETCG1

Views: 2,171,229

Keywords: Catalytic converter, catalytic converter theft, what’s inside a catalytic converter, metals in catalytic converter, why catalytic converters are stolen, stolen catalytic converter, catalytic converter processing, platinum, palladium, rhodium, converter processing, organized crime, crime, crime video, automotive education, EricTheCarGuy, Eric the car guy, ETCG, ETCG1, #etcg1, #ETCG1Video

Id: bpuAv0sTh-w

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021