Catalytic Converter Theft – How to protect your fleet from the increasing theft in our area.

At Security ONE we are constantly tasked with staying ahead of the curve when it comes to trends in thefts.   It’s an ongoing battle for our research and development team to ensure that your security provider is on top of these trends, always striving to stay ahead of the curve.  This allows us to keep our clients educated and informed on these trends along with the services we provide to keep these thieves at bay.   Over the past year, we’ve identified an increased trend in catalytic converter thefts, with criminals targeting commercial fleets where many opportunities exist during the night.  

We recently dove into the reasoning behind catalytic converter theft and found out what is causing this spike, looking to identify the “why” behind this rather random car part being a hot theft item.  So hot in fact that catalytic converter theft has risen over 2000% in the past year in Canada.  The details of its worth are simple.  The increase in value of many of the worlds precious metals which make up specific parts of the catalytic converter.  Over the past five years, the value of these metals – Platinum and rhodium, in particular – has risen exponentially. Palladium went from about $200 USD an ounce 12 years ago to nearly $2,300 today. By comparison, the price of gold rose from approximately $1,100 an ounce USD to just over $1,700 in the same period.  Then there’s rhodium. It was worth just over $1,100 USD an ounce in early 2009; now it’s valued at more than $26,000 an ounce.  That’s why some of these organized crime groups and individuals are trying to get their hands on them.  All this combined with the ease of removal, which trained thieves are able to remove most catalytic converters in 1 minute or less, with the use of simply, a sawzall, provide an easy target with high value returns.  Not only does the cost of replacing the converter hit hard, at a cost of thousands of dollars, it also creates unscheduled and unwanted downtime for one or all of your fleet vehicles.  This would in turn also create an indirect revenue loss.

This is where Proactive Video Monitoring comes into play, and is setting our clients up for success when it comes to protecting this valuable asset.  Proactive Video Monitoring is a system we at Security ONE install that turns your reactive video system, which, yes will record the crime and present you with that evidence in the morning of what happened, into a crime in action alarm which we are then able to dispatch authorities while the thieves are onsite.  With our advanced systems we are actually able to talk down to the criminal while they are committing the crime to alert them that they are committing a crime, and police have been dispatched to apprehend them.  

Take a look at an example of a recent even which resulted in a spoiled theft, no loss or damages and likely have taken this business of thieves radar as they are protected.