Kelowna RCMP have said there has been an uptick in the theft of Catalytic converter which began around Christmas time.
However, it has increased significantly over the last month and half.
“Honestly no car is safe,” said Const. Mike Della-Paolera
“If it’s parked on the street, it’s parked out in a public area — they’re a potential target for these criminals.”
In a vehicle’s exhaust system, a catalytic converter controls and reduces pollutants. A significant rise in the price of precious metals contained in these devices has increased the theft of catalytic converters.
Const. Della-Paolera tells Global News they now have a special unit called the Proactive Enforcement Unit take over the file to help crack down on the theft operation.
“A proactive police unit is now fully engaged in trying to figure out who’s involved with this and arrest them,” said Della-Paolera.
Paragon Motors shop owner Drew Henderson said the process to fix a vehicle after its catalytic converter has been stolen is not only lengthy, but, costly as well.
“Easy catalytic converter is easily going to run you $500 just for the part, forget the labour and everything else to put it in,” said Henderson.
“Not to mention the fact that — let’s go back to it – they just hacked it out. They didn’t do it properly so I have other components I have to fix as well.”
Henderson said that more needs to be done when it comes to regulations and creating more of a barrier for criminals.
He believes more emphasis should be put on licensing establishments to make it more legitimate or even adding serial numbers to the catalytic converters.
“If the governments were to crack down on that, that’s going to help. It’s not going to stop them but it will help,” said Henderson.
“Bad people will do bad things and you can’t stop the black market. But, if you make it harder, you make it harder.”.
To prevent these thefts, the province changed regulations in March of 2022, requiring metal dealers to report transactions and sellers to provide information.