Thieves Getting More Brazen in Catalytic Converter Thefts

The catalytic converter is a car part that changes dangerous emissions into safe gasses to improve safety and reduce air pollution. It contains precious metals, such as platinum, palladium and rhodium, meaning the parts can be sold for a high price on the illegal market - which means dealerships must have robust security in place or be at risk of theft. 

Catalytic converters have to be removed from underneath vehicles. As a result, many thieves will use jacks to lift vehicles in garages, driveways, worksites, parking lots and dealerships to access the catalytic converters and remove them.

In more recent years, governments across Canada have tried to implement rules, requirements and legislation to make it harder to flip stolen catalytic converters. This legislation generally includes rules for:

• Reporting transactions involving specific forms of metal (such as catalytic converters) to a central law enforcement database.
• Collecting information about the seller including:
• Seller name, address, business name and seller ID number
• Date and time of the transaction 
• Description and weight of the metal
• Information on the vehicle used to deliver the metal including make, model, colour and license plate 
• Only allowing traceable payments for these transactions (i.e. no cash allowed).

Unfortunately, this has done little to stop criminals. In fact, criminals are getting more and more brazen in their thefts with the most recent trend being to flip cars over with fork lifts to remove the valuable part. This results in additional damage costs beyond simply replacing the catalytic converter.

How businesses can prevent catalytic converter thefts

There are many steps that businesses can take to protect their vehicle assets and inventories. This includes installing tracking systems to your vehicles, allowing you to quickly detect and respond to any unauthorized movement.

If your business has spare catalytic converters for repairs and maintenance, be sure to lock up your inventory and consider installing managed access control.

Managed access control will secure areas of your dealership and service shop where you store valuable items. This includes catalytic converters, other expensive parts and keys for your vehicle inventory. Even better, it will give you in-depth reporting on who was in which room at what time of the day.

More importantly, to prevent the theft of these valuable parts, it is critical to install strong physical security measures to protect your vehicles, including a verified alarm system. 

Unlike traditional CCTV, verified alarms monitor for security threats and then send a live audio or video feed to a security expert in a central monitoring station. This professional is then able to verify that the threat is real.

Once verified, police are notified. This real-time monitoring increases the average police response time. On average, police are onsite in 3.5 minutes (compared to the 45 minutes average response time with traditional CCTV surveillance).

Interested in learning more about how a verified alarm system can work for your business? Get a free Sonitrol Western Canada security plan today.