Car sound different today? Bellingham Police investigating catalytic converter thefts
Bellingham Police are investigating whether a pair of catalytic converter thefts reported Saturday afternoon in the Irongate neighborhood is the beginnings of a trend or just a one-day spree.
Police received two reports of catalytic converter thefts — one shortly after noon and the other at 1:59 p.m. Saturday — in the 3900 block of Iron Gate Road. In both cases, the converters were cut off cars, Lt. Claudia Murphy said Monday in an email to The Bellingham Herald.
Saturday’s crimes mark the fourth and fifth successful converter thefts reported to Bellingham Police in 2018, Murphy said. A sixth was attempted in June.
Those numbers are substantially up from the one case Bellingham had reported in 2017 and none in 2016 and 2015. But in 2014, Murphy said, there were 12 reported cases, and multiple converters were stolen in some of those cases.
“There was a downswing in these thefts, as our local metal scrapping places ceased to accept them, and if selling them, you had to provide ID,” Murphy said. “Not sure if this is an upswing or just someone who came to our area and took two.”
According to a 2016 story published by arstechnica.com, catalytic converters have attracted thieves because the emissions control devices contain small amounts of platinum, palladium and rhodium, which are valuable metals. The converters also are also relatively easy to access and quick to cut off cars left unattended.
The ARS Technica story also said that according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, there were 25,394 converter thefts nationally between 2008 and 2016, with a high of 4,370 in 2014.
Bellingham is not the only city to see an uptick this year, as the Chicago Sun-Times reported a number of towns near Chicago seeing an increase, the Long Beach Press Telegram reported a similar trend in Southern California and KRON4 reported a string of thefts in Oakland, among numerous others.
In a January story about an increase in Chapel Hill, N.C., the Raliegh News and Observer said Chapel Hill Police offered the following advice for car owners to avoid falling victim:
▪ Park in areas that are well lit and don’t offer easy access underneath your car.
▪ Call police if you hear the sound of a saw or see someone working under a vehicle late at night.
▪ When in shopping centers, park near the entrance or main road where traffic would be greatest.
No need to crawl under your car to make sure your catalytic converter is still there — if it was stolen, your car’s exhaust would sound very different, according to the Chapel Hill Police.