Recyclers: Don’t buy stolen converters
It takes a village. Imagine my disappointment when I get into my truck at my office and find that someone absconded with my catalytic converters from my truck. In broad daylight, they crawled under my truck and sawed them off.
When I went to the mechanic to get an estimate, he said it is a common occurrence in our fine city. The thief can sell them for $15-$20 each (there were two) to the waste-recycling centers. It’s going to cost me over $800 to fix my truck. I know the Fresno Police Department and authorities have better things to do, but this sort of thing would not happen if there were no buyers for used catalytic converters.
They are obviously stolen, and creating a marketplace for stolen goods only exacerbates the problem. It is the same with copper wire, but with copper prices down, I guess the next best target is converters. Apparently this is happening all over Fresno according to my mechanic, who is being kept quite busy with repairs, which he abhors by the way.
This type of thief only puts Fresno in a bad light.
Stephen Mar, Fresno
This story was originally published August 6, 2016 at 1:20 PM with the headline "Recyclers: Don’t buy stolen converters."