Long Island men allegedly made nearly $170 million from stolen catalytic converters to a single refinery in an 18-month period, according to DA

[alarmguy]

Nassau County, with a median household income of roughly $130,000 tends to make the news and some are quite inventive on how they make that money.
These thieves weren't that far from where I spent most of my life or well, you all know the Amy Fisher story. When that one broke, a family member jumped up and down defending Joey... until .. wow, he was wrong.

BTW - Billy Joel just put his house up for sale @ $49 million. He grew up not far from me before his fame. Spent most his life there and like so many, time to get out of that overtaxed _______ (fill out your own blank) place, I guess for him too.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/15/billy-joel-wants-49m-for-his-longtime-long-island-home/

 

[mk378]

1. Are they having more trouble selling at junkyards?

This operation bypassed local junkyards and metal recyclers entirely. The ringleaders of local theft were sending converters directly to New York.

 

[Pablo]

This operation bypassed local junkyards and metal recyclers entirely. The ringleaders of local theft were sending converters directly to New York.

Sure but "extracted precious metals from inside and sent those metals to refineries to be paid" So no real surprise in that, well to me at least. I mean someone has to open the coconuts.

 

[Dave Hess]

Scrap dealers need to also be arrested and thrown in jail.

 

[CT Rob]

Bail was set pretty low.

It's New York ,no surprise there

 

[CT Rob]

....and don't forget what NYC DA Bragg (Soros backed) is doing to a Marine (Daniel Penney) who intervened on a subway car when a violent homeless person (44 prior arrests) was threatening passengers and throwing things at them. Let's hope the jury shows some common sense (I wouldn't count on it in NYC).

PS: I find it hard to believe that 18 months of stealing CC's could net $170 million dollars....seems way too high to me.

Some of the metals in those cars go for Thousands of dollars an ounce or pound i cant remember .

 

[Pablo]

Some of the metals in those cars go for Thousands of dollars an ounce or pound i cant remember .

OUNCE

 

[KrisZ]

Some of the metals in those cars go for Thousands of dollars an ounce or pound i cant remember .

Yes, and therefore each catalytic converter has a very tiny amount of that metal. I would also imagine that getting that metal out of a used catalytic converter also has some losses.
The strory the amounts and the timeline involved simply don't make sense. So it's either sloppy journalism here or there is a lot more to the story than what is being reported.

 

[mk378]

At $250 of metal per converter that would represent 680,000 converters over 18 months. Records of the number stolen per year vary a lot but are at least 100,000. The place was also buying and processing legitimately scrapped converters but without a way to tell the difference (and they didn't ask questions either) the entire business will be assumed to be in stolen goods.

 

[mk378]

OUNCE

More specifically precious metals are traded in troy ounces, which are about 10% more than regular ounces. But close enough for this purpose.

 

[alarmguy]

Some of the metals in those cars go for Thousands of dollars an ounce or pound i cant remember .

I was clueless myself, forget gold that’s cheap
Check this out,

“The two men are accused of purchasing volumes of whole catalytic converters with cash and using special tools to open the units to obtain platinum, palladium and rhodium.”
….
“While all three metals hold high values, Rhodium has an estimated value of $7,500 per ounce.”

https://www.moneymetals.com/rhodium-price

Besides trafficking in stolen goods the bigger story maybe the money laundering to the tune of 170 million dollars

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Yes, and therefore each catalytic converter has a very tiny amount of that metal. I would also imagine that getting that metal out of a used catalytic converter also has some losses.
The strory the amounts and the timeline involved simply don't make sense. So it's either sloppy journalism here or there is a lot more to the story than what is being reported.

Not saying it did not happen. But its very hard to comprehend that amount of money. Unless it happened over several years. It is also hard to believe there are not more/many people and several "work sites" involved in the disposale of these stolen parts after processing the precious metals inside.

The dollar figure in these cases is provided by the prosecutor. It could simply be a rough estimate of the retail value of refined ore. There was a similar case out of NJ which I and other posted a year ago. That number was over $500M

https://www.nj.com/news/2022/11/fed...-theft-scheme-with-nj-ties-officials-say.html

 

[Pablo]

Not that I know illegal drug prices, but the multi-million busts are always the highest possible street value.

 

[KrisZ]

Not that I know illegal drug prices, but the multi-million busts are always the highest possible street value.

Yup, makes for good news and make the government look like they are doing something substantial.

 

[brianl703]

Not that I know illegal drug prices, but the multi-million busts are always the highest possible street value.

It's kind of like when they'd bust someone for stealing cable TV, they added up the value of every single pay-per-view and movie channel that could've possibly been watched even if they'd have needed 10 TVs to watch them all.

 

[PandaBear]

You can't eliminate shady business unless there is no money to be made. If it is not in the US it would be smuggled out to be refined. The only way to eliminate stolen cat is to design new cars to not have a cat, crashing the precious metal business, or stop inflation and increase currency cost (interest rate) to crash the precious metal price. I'll stop here before this get political.

I think stolen cat would be the reason EV replace gas car, seriously.

 

[alarmguy]

The dollar figure in these cases is provided by the prosecutor. It could simply be a rough estimate of the retail value of refined ore. ,.,

Agree,
Still even a few million or more person including tax evasion is significant. Even though I’m sure it’s no where near them actually making 170 million.
One also must not discount the cost to the consumers and insurance companies that had to pay retail plus labor to replace the stolen ones of cars still on the road, excluding the junk yard ones.