Police looking for thieves who stole 35 catalytic converters from Salem RV dealership

Oct. 11—State police are trying to figure out who stole thousands of dollars worth of catalytic converters from exhaust systems of 35 vehicles parked in the lot at a Salem recreational vehicle dealership along Route 66.

The thefts took place about 2 a.m. Oct. 2 at Valero Century RV, just north of Delmont, Trooper Jeffrey Walton reported. Walton said the thieves targeted a fleet of Schwan's delivery trucks parked on the property. Valero's website says its service department handles maintenance and repairs for vehicles from the well-known grocery home delivery company.

Valero officials did not return calls seeking comment.

It is the latest report indicating a spike in catalytic converter thefts in the region.

On Feb. 23, state police put out an alert that thieves in Somerset and Fayette counties had stolen catalytic converters from about 30 vehicles parked around Seven Springs Mountain Resort over a span of weeks. No arrests were made in that case.

Also Monday, state troopers in Indiana County reported that a catalytic converter was stolen Sept. 24 from a Ford pickup owned by a 63-year-old Blairsville man and parked at a repair shop along Route 286 in Center Township.

Troopers valued the single converter from the pickup truck at $1,339.

A value of the multiple stolen vehicle parts taken Oct. 2 at Valero's was not listed by Walton in the theft report.

This spring, the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a nonprofit devoted to combating insurance fraud and vehicle theft, reported that catalytic converter thefts have seen a significant increase across the country since the pandemic started in March 2020.

"We have seen a significant increase during the pandemic. It's an opportunistic crime," said David Glawe, president and CEO of NICB.

"As the value of the precious metals contained within the catalytic converters continues to increase, so do the number of thefts of these devices. There is a clear connection between times of crisis, limited resources, and disruption of the supply chain that drives investors towards these precious metals," he said previously.

A catalytic converter is a device that looks like a small muffler along with the exhaust system. It is designed to convert the environmentally hazardous exhaust emitted by an engine into less harmful gases.

Manufacturers use platinum, palladium or rhodium. Values of these precious metals have increased significantly in recent years. As of December 2020, rhodium was valued at $14,500 per ounce, palladium at $2,336 per ounce and platinum was $1,061 per ounce. Typically, recyclers will pay $50 to $250 per catalytic converter, the NICB reported.

According to NICB's Operations, Intelligence and Analytics study of reported thefts, there were 108 catalytic converter thefts per month on average in 2018, 282 average monthly thefts in 2019, and 1,203 average thefts per month in 2020 — climbing from 652 in January to 2,347 thefts in December, according to the NICB.

Due to the spike in thefts, many states are evaluating potential legislative actions to curb the theft problem, the NICB said.

"Removing a catalytic converter takes only minutes using some basic, readily-available, battery-operated tools from a local hardware store," added Glawe. "And for the vehicle owner, it's costly due to the loss of work, finding and paying for alternate transportation and then paying anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 to get your vehicle fixed."

Anyone who may have seen anything suspicious related to the Oct. 2 thefts in Salem is asked to call state police at Kiski at 724-697-5780.

Paul Peirce is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paul at 724-850-2860, ppeirce@triblive.com or via Twitter .