With the rampant theft of catalytic converters long a vexing problem for thousands of frustrated car owners, San Jose leaders want to make it easier to nab the culprits pilfering the valuable devices from vehicles in the city.
City leaders are proposing tweaking the current ordinance to make possessing an unattached catalytic converter illegal without proof of ownership. Individuals without proof would also face harsher fines. Currently, law enforcement and prosecutors can only seize and press charges for the devices when they find the car part carrying etchings, usually showing the original car owner’s license plate number.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and Councilmembers David Cohen and Pam Foley are pushing for the change and a hearing will take place before the city rules committee on Wednesday. The full council is expected to vote in early 2024.
The law would institute a series of escalating fines if the same individual is found possessing stolen catalytic converters within the same year, though a specific dollar figure was not immediately available.
Describing San Jose as one of the safest cities in the Bay Area, Mahan wrote in a statement, “Every day, we work to keep it that way. So far this year, thanks to the hard work of our police department and legislation at the state level, San Jose has seen a 50% decrease in catalytic converter theft — but we aren’t taking our foot off the gas. We are making it easier for our officers to seize stolen catalytic converters and hold thieves accountable.”
Police say they ran into the limitations of the current laws in November when an officer stopped a stolen vehicle that contained 14 catalytic converters, according to a memo drafted by councilmembers. In that instance, police could only seize the two catalytic converts that had etchings identifying the original owner. Under the new ordinance, the driver could have faced charges and fines for all 14. A spokesperson for the police department declined to comment.
San Jose residents have filed 4,123 reports of stolen catalytic converters since 2021, according to the police department. Police conducted an undercover operation in 2021 dubbed “Cat Scratch Thiever” which tried to disrupt underground fencing rings trading in the stolen part. One scrapyard implicated in the operation, Tung Tai Group, settled with the city this year for $2,500 after being accused of accepting the stolen car parts.
The device filters the toxic fumes from an automobile’s exhaust and contains precious metals like rhodium, palladium and platinum that can fetch around $250 on the black market. It costs some drivers up to a thousand dollars to replace the part with insurance — and hundreds more to place a guard on the bottom of the car to deter thieves. In recent years, police departments across the Bay Area have offered etching programs for residents in an attempt to push back against theft.
Aside from being a financial burden for drivers, catalytic converter theft has also triggered violence, with some Bay Area residents injured after confronting the perpetrators. In August, a Sunnyvale man was shot after approaching thieves who were trying to steal the device from his car.
If approved, San Jose’s new law would align it with a number of other California cities.
The Los Angeles City Council passed its own law this year cracking down on possession, though the new rules faced some pushback from lawmakers who argued there were already enough penalties on the books and that it would disproportionately target people of color and low-income residents. San Jose officials claim it has helped curb their theft in Southern California.
At the state level, a slew of bills passed by the legislature in 2022 sought to fight back against the theft. The new laws prioritized theft of vehicle parts as one of the California Highway Patrol’s tasks, beefed up rules around possession and required businesses who buy catalytic converters to document where the device came from.
According to companies who track insurance claims for the car part, thefts are trending downwards. In October, State Farm reported the first decline in the number of stolen catalytic converter thefts nationwide since 2019. In the first half of 2023, California saw over 5,400 claims and $17.8 million paid out by the insurance company.
The declining trend mirrors what San Jose’s Go To Auto Care Jeff Olia has experienced in recent months. Olia, the owner of the car repair shop on Monterey Highway, said around 2021 and 2022 he was replacing catalytic converters multiple times a week and fielding calls every day. But he’s gone weeks without helping someone with the car part in the past few months.
“It’s slowed big time,” said Olia. “As far as what we’re seeing… I think law enforcement is getting caught up with them.”