Wichita police launch ‘Operation Cat Guard,’ issue warning to those who steal car parts
Wichita police announced a new program aimed at slowing the onslaught of catalytic converter thefts while also warning thieves and buyers that they are coming for them.
“We’re absolutely coming after these catalytic converter thieves and these buyers who are illegitimately buying these with everything we have,” Lt. Casey Slaughter said during a news conference Friday.
Wichita has already surpassed its record, set in 2020, of 541 cases. There have been 592 cases so far this year, with more than 100 of them in June. Cases can include more than one theft. Supporting a drug addiction, mainly methamphetamine, and the snowballing resale of the precious metals in catalytic converters — one metal, palladium, is worth more than gold — have driven the thefts to new heights, police said.
The metals have a scrap value between $200 to $1,000, Slaughter said, but a converter can cost more than $2,000 to replace.
Deputy Police Chief Jose Salcido said it’s a “multi-million-dollar problem that’s just not unique to Kansas.”
Operation Cat Guard will launch in the next few weeks. Police, in partnership with an area association, will have identification numbers etched into the catalytic converters and the numbers registered into a national law enforcement database. All of it will be done at area dealerships. The operation will offer 1,000 to 1,200 of the etching kits, which have a retail cost of $20-30.
“What we have right now is just a part number on a catalytic converter so there is no way to tell in many situations where those converters are coming from,” Slaughter said, adding Wichita has a “high number of unsolved cases.”
More details will be announced before the program is launched.
Salcido said people also can etch a unique number into the catalytic converter themselves. He said to use the last six digits of your vehicle identification number, followed by a dash and your initials.
The kits use a sticker and fluid to etch a unique number into the converter. The number burns into the catalytic converter after it heats up.
Whether using a kit or doing it yourself, a thief could always scratch off the numbers, but police will be working to crack down on that as well.
“At this point, we’re gonna put everybody on notice who is purchasing these catalytic converters, knowingly purchasing stolen property, if they see these grind marks on here, it’s a big no-no and we’re going to crack down on that and we’re going to charge them with what we can in terms of the theft statute,” Slaughter said.
Police have started to work with federal agencies and plan to survey area businesses that buy catalytic converters.
“We just cannot catch people in the act, so we are going after people who are buying,” Salcido said. “We rarely consult our federal partners to bring the weight and might of the federal government to this issue, but it’s such a problem nationwide and here locally that we’ve had those conversations.”
In December, Salcido called the thefts a “gold rush” and blamed a state “law (that) has no teeth.” Under the state law, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office is responsible for enforcing that businesses register and report seller information to a statewide database..
The legislation that created the database — maintained by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and enforced by the Kansas Attorney General’s Office — for years had parts that were either underfunded or suspended before being brought up to snuff in July 2020, the AG’s office previously said.
There are transactions still not being logged in the database; Salcido said they know that because of operations they’ve done.
But, he said, “there is a little more order.” He said they are starting to have more confidence in the database and continue to work with the AG’s office and KBI.
KBI communications director Melissa Underwood said, from July 1 -May 31, the database logged 32,403 transactions with 584,979 items of scrap, which isn’t specific to catalytic converters. She said catalytic-converter-specific information is available but would take more time to extract.
Additionally, she said, there are 72 dealers approved to report to the database; the KBI has one person who operates the program.
“By statute, the Attorney General’s Office is responsible for registering the scrap metal dealers and ensuring the dealers are complying with reporting to the repository,” she said in an email.
AG spokesperson John Milburn said, even after the legislature reestablished the database in July 2020, that a rewrite of the Scrap Metal Theft Reduction Act led to confusion about whether or not catalytic converters were subject to the reporting requirements. That wasn’t resolved until an AG opinion in May that concluded they were.
In Wichita, hundreds of catalytic converters were stolen during that time of confusion.
“The Wichita Police Department (Thursday) sent us its first referral under the statute for consideration of civil prosecution,” Milburn wrote in an email. “That case is under review.”
If a business fails to register or record a transaction, the AG’s office can enforce a fine between $100 and $5,000, per offense.
In addition to Operation Cat Guard, the police department hopes to have changes made to the city’s nuisance ordinance in order to better target the thefts of catalytic converters.
“It’s that concerning to us,” he said, adding that thieves can target dealerships, “churches, non-profits.”
Back in December, Salcido said the resale of the metals in a catalytic converter was between $12 and $471. It’s now as high as $1,000 because of the jump in prices in the metals, he said.
Using a battery-powered saw, a catalytic converter can be stolen in less than 30 seconds, he said. And it happens everywhere.
Slaughter said it’s not just dealerships being robbed; it’s busy parking lots and private driveways. Salcido said one was stolen off his neighbor’s truck in the driveway.
This story was originally published June 25, 2021 at 6:49 PM.