Three years ago, thieves stole a staggering 8,591 catalytic converters from New York City vehicles. But since 2022, police, prosecutors and even state lawmakers have taken steps to solve the problem — and it’s been extremely effective, according to the NYPD and crime data.
Last year, the number of stolen catalytic converters in the city was down to 1,467 – a trend that played out across the country.
In 2023, the insurance company State Farm registered 21,000 claims of catalytic converter thefts nationwide, according to figures from the company. In 2022, the company registered 45,000 claims.
A catalytic converter is a device that helps lower a car’s harmful emissions. Typically located next to a car’s muffler, it converts pollutants generated by a vehicle to less-harmful substances. Thieves target them because they contain valuable metals that can be extracted and sold for hundreds of dollars, according to Christopher Herrmann, a former crime analyst supervisor with the NYPD who now works as an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. They’re also easy to steal, he added.
“You can get a converter out in less than a minute if you know what you’re doing,” Hermann said in a phone call, adding that they can go for up to $500. “So it’s a pretty lucrative biz.”
Thefts in the city have stayed lower this year, with police recording 648 thefts through May.
Gothamist asked police and auto theft experts what they credit for the dramatic decrease in thefts.
Tracking
The NYPD has taken steps to better track the devices, making them less attractive to thieves.
After thefts of the devices boomed in the city in 2021 and 2022, the NYPD promoted an etching program that allows car owners to attach a number to a vehicle’s catalytic converter. That number could then be tracked on a website, an NYPD spokesperson said. If police arrested a thief with a converter that had been etched, they could show it was stolen property, making it less attractive to steal, according to the spokesperson.
Legislation
Albany also took action to combat the thefts, Herrmann said. In 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law targeting chop shops in the state profiting off recycling stolen converters. Under the law, car dismantlers are required to keep records of the number of catalytic converters they receive every 60 days and report them to state authorities.
Prosecutions
Law enforcement in the region and across the country identified the small number of criminals stealing the devices and charged them, Herrmann said.
“This is one of those crimes that’s committed by a very few, small group of people,” he said. “A few people with the tools and the skills that know how to do this.”
In 2022, federal prosecutors charged more than 20 people for taking part in a sprawling, nationwide catalytic converter theft ring that generated tens of millions of dollars. Defendants charged in the case include residents of Long Island and the owners of an auto shop in New Jersey.
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