Catalytic thievery.

Byline: Jack Moran The Register-Guard

Nate McClain didn't know what to think when he arrived at his Eugene pet shop one afternoon last month and saw a man lying on the ground underneath a van McClain keeps parked there.

It didn't cross his mind that the stranger was there to steal the vehicle's catalytic converter.

"At first, I thought he and the guy with him were either working on their truck or checking out my cars," said McClain, owner of Zany Zoo Pets at the corner of West 11th Avenue and Bailey Hill Road.

"As I pulled up closer, I heard a reciprocal saw going," he said. "That's when I figured out the guy was cutting parts off of my van."

McClain confronted the men, who hopped into their truck and sped away. Police haven't found them yet, McClain said.

The thieves fled with a catalytic converter from another of McClain's vehicles and had partially sawed off the one attached to the van before McClain caught them in the act.

Now, McClain is looking at paying several hundred dollars to fix the vehicles.

"It's going to be expensive," McClain said. "I told a friend about it, and he said (catalytic converter theft) is the biggest thing going right now."

McClain's friend is correct.

Rising metal prices - combined with the fact that swiping a catalytic converter is a quick, easy and potentially profitable crime to commit - have led to a recent rise in converter thefts across the United States and in England.

The device, a pollution-control component of a vehicle's exhaust system, contains precious metals including platinum, rhodium and palladium.

An ounce of rhodium was selling for about $4,500 this week on the open market, while platinum was going for about $1,200 per ounce.

The typical converter contains just 1 to 2 grams - less than a tenth of an ounce - of the metals.

Springfield police Detective Matt Thompson said investigators looking into a series of recent thefts have heard that thieves earn between $50 and $230 per catalytic converter.

"For a thief, that's a lot of bang for the buck," Thompson said. "They've got to haul in a lot of wire and commit a lot of nighttime burglaries to make that much."

Six catalytic converters were reportedly cut from vehicles over a three-day period last month in Springfield. Most of those incidents occurred in business parking lots in the Gateway area in broad daylight.

Thompson said he can't recall a single incident before this year involving stolen converters.

"Thieves are just now starting to figure it out," he said.

Thompson fears the crime will become increasingly common, similar to the rise seen in copper wire thefts during the past few years.

Eugene and Springfield police did not have statistics available to show exactly how many catalytic converters have been stolen in their cities so far this year.

Police say a key to cracking down on catalytic converter thefts is identifying where criminals are selling the stolen devices.

Contrary to what some might believe, Thompson said pilfered converters aren't being exchanged for cash at local scrap dealers.

"There are other places for them to go," he said. "We believe (thieves) are using middlemen who will buy them and take them out of the area."

DC Metals co-owner Josh Christiansen said his Eugene shop pays between $5 and $15 for a used catalytic converter - far less than what many criminals hope to receive in exchange for the device. Other local scrap dealers offer similar rates.

"We don't want to deal with that type of thing," Christiansen said. "People try to bring them in all the time. It's funny, because I have people call and ask how much they can get for one, I tell them and they hang up on me."

It's Christiansen's belief that big-city "core" buyers - businesses that collect large numbers of converters to sell to processors - are where stolen converters often end up.

Used converters also are offered for sale on online auction sites, although it's impossible to know how many of those units were acquired illegally.

Police say there's not much a vehicle owner can do to protect against becoming a victim.

"It's a little different from the normal type of theft, because these people don't want to break into your car," Lane County sheriff's Lt. Byron Trapp said. "It only takes somebody a couple minutes to cut through the system, and if somebody wants to take a catalytic converter from a car that's been left unattended, it's pretty easy."

Dennis Arendt of Eugene learned that the hard way.

Someone cut the converter from his Nissan pickup one day earlier this summer after he parked it at the end of Royal Avenue west of Eugene and headed out for a day of bird watching at Fern Ridge Lake.

"Everything looked fine when I got back," Arendt recalled. "Then I started it up and heard this tremendous noise from under the truck."

Arendt took his pickup to a mechanic friend, who could not find a used catalytic converter locally that would fit the Nissan.

Arendt ultimately bought a new converter for $275.

Jeff Stutz, owner of Goofy's Muffler Customs in Glenwood, said his shop is regularly replacing stolen converters this summer.

"We get about one a week," Stutz said. "It all started about three or four months ago."

Depending on the damage, Stutz said repairs typically cost between $175 and $1,000. He said some high-end cars are equipped with converters that run in the $2,000 to $3,000 range.

Vehicle owners hoping to dissuade thieves from stealing their converter could purchase a device an Ohio company unveiled earlier this year called the "CATCLAMP." It uses thick aircraft cables to create a cage that fits around a converter.

In a response to converter thefts in their city, Tigard police in June sponsored an event during which officers engraved identifying marks on Toyota-brand SUV and truck catalytic converters.

Police say thieves target those vehicles because of their high ground clearance and the fact that their converters are bolted in place, rather than welded to the rest of the exhaust system.

Salem police said earlier this week that they have investigated at least 32 reports of stolen catalytic converters since Aug. 1.

Similar to the string of Springfield thefts last month, most of the Salem incidents occurred in public parking lots during the daytime.