Your Catalytic Converter Metals Likely Ended Up in a New Catalytic Converter

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SCREENSHOT

St. Louis was shocked by a catalytic converter theft at a Schnucks parking lot in south city last February.

If you are one of the many, many St. Louisans who had your catalytic converter stolen out from under your car, you may have wondered whatever became of that pilfered hunk of metal. 

Well, the New York Times has your answer. 

Yesterday, the Gray Lady dropped an in-depth investigative piece about the black market for essential and precious metals that is fueled by converter thefts and spans virtually the entire world, from Montana to New Jersey, South Africa to Japan.

The reporters found these valuable metals are extracted from converters and then mixed in with metals of legitimate sourcing, making it impossible for manufacturers to distinguish what’s legal from what’s not. Ultimately, the platinum, palladium and rhodium from stolen converters wind up being bought by military contractors, pharmaceutical companies and, perhaps most infuriating, operations that make new catalytic converters. 

So, yes, the precious metals from your stolen converter may have ended up in a cancer patient’s chemotherapy treatment. But it’s just as likely they wound up in a new converter that someone had to buy because theirs had been stolen, too. 

According to the piece, last year 600,000 cars had their converters stolen. But the craziest factoid the Times dug up is that there at one time was, and perhaps still is, an app that provided thieves with “up-to-the-minute prices of the metals along with the estimated value of catalytic converters from different vehicles.”

As one federal prosecutor put it: “That made it easier for thieves who otherwise would just be slinging dope on a corner to just pull out their phone and be like, ‘Oh, look, there’s a Prius parked across the street — I wonder how much I can get for that?’”

Converter thefts in St. Louis seem to have slowed down as of late. At least it’s been a while since one occurred in a bustling parking lot broad daylight while Schnucks shoppers filmed. Let’s hope it stays that way.

In the meantime, you can read the New York Times investigation here. 

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