Catalytic converter anti-theft

Thieves sell the craziest stuff. If only they applied their effort and work ethic to something legal...

A friend of mine who works for a major grocery chain told me that they were having troubles with stolen pallets. I thought he meant the wooden ones and said "what else is new?", but he said it was the new composite ones made out of recycled plastic.

It turned out that they were losing so many of these pallets that they started putting trackers on them (like LoJacks) so they could follow them. The pallets were being stolen from California and trucked out to the middle of nowhere in Arizona to a makeshift facility (picture Breaking Bad) where the thieves ground them into pellets and sold them back to the Chinese factory who manufactured the pallets.

The chain was: Chinese factory >> grocery distributors in CA >> grocery stores in CA >> thieves >> Arizona facility >> back to China >> repeat.

I got this story from the friend after I returned a couple of green totes that I stole from that same grocery chain back in the 80s when I was in college before you could just buy them at Target. I was cleaning out the garage and didn't need them anymore, so I figured he'd get a kick out of my coming clean and returning them to him. He said that those totes are still worth big bucks.

He turned them into Loss Prevention and a few weeks later they literally gave him a trophy to present to me for "found revenue".

I'm living a clean life now though. No more stolen totes. And your catalytic converter is safe around me.

bobsallyh wrote:
cummins12v98, that is close to the Mexican border. That is why Cats are a frequent stolen item here in Yuma and the Foothills. They end up going across the border, easy/peasy.

Makes sense.

cummins12v98, that is close to the Mexican border. That is why Cats are a frequent stolen item here in Yuma and the Foothills. They end up going across the border, easy/peasy.

dedmiston wrote:

Cummins12V98 wrote:
"Illegal to sell cats in California...for just that reason."

Interesting, I wonder why friends had theirs removed from their MotorHome in a Desert Hot Springs Storage area if there is no regional market.

It's also illegal to sell heroin, but it happens.

It’s ok, some people can’t see the forest for the trees or just thrive on being intentionally antagonistic.
Ahem…..jdc1…

And then we have the “I don’t have crime at my house, what’s your problem?” folks.
Ahem….pitch….

Sooo helpful these fellers are….

ferndaleflyer wrote:
Really? I am 20 mi from town and 4mi from closest neighbor but a church is 3mi up the road and has had the cats stolen off of their bus twice. Sitting in a well lighted car port. Thieves and drugs are in the country also. But those 2 big white dogs do a pretty good job of keeping thieves at bay here, no market for drugs here either.

Different areas. We use to and will in the future encounter thieves who cruise though here to doings, the lakes etc, in the summer and come back to take advantage of the opportunities. Our Church is rural too, and a few years ago it became necessary for some Church members to carry, watch the doors and the parking lots during services. I don't remember how many vehicles were broken into. Around here Law Enforcement are neighbors and friends and a call is answered almost immediately. There is always someone home here otherwise we might be victims as twice our Leo and the Sheriff caught burglars in the act before we bought the place. As to staling the cats the sawsall will make some noise, the dogs the dogs already letting the world know.

I have insurance. I also live in an area where crime is not rampant,we have excellent laws that demand positive ID and photographs for every pawn shop or scrap yard transaction.
Feel bad for the majority of you that seem to be living in fear of the next crime.

The best thing to do is to slow them down by building a cage around it. If they are committed they could still get it off. But, if you make it look harder for them to do maybe they will move on to a easier one.

Dutch my up North place is on Aviation blvd at BWI airport in Baltimore, many years ago they got 200+ out of the long term parking lot and got away clean

Google catalytic converter anti theft device.

An area car dealer lost a couple of dozen cats in one night a couple of years ago. A surveillance camera across the road showed four guys armed with a floor jack, battery powered saws, and a lawn cart, dropping them out with the precision of a NASCAR pit crew. In and out in about 30 minutes. They did get caught though, when the camera at another business showed them loading their spoils into a pickup with the license plate in clear view.