Catalytic converter thieves in Little Rock are turning their attention more and more to auto fleets

Patterns appear in Little Rock catalytic converter thefts

A barbed wire fence surrounds the City of Little Rock Development and Maintenance property Saturday.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)
A barbed wire fence surrounds the City of Little Rock Development and Maintenance property Saturday. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)


The theft of a single catalytic converter is an expensive hassle, but police say that the majority of theft reports they get involve thieves hitting more than one target. Alone or in small groups, they target Little Rock businesses with company vehicles or car lots, sometimes stealing a half-dozen or more of them in a single effort.

Although single thefts are not unheard of, more and more thieves are stealing from large parking lots, car lots, auto shop lots and the fleet vehicles of service companies, Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Eric Barnes said.

A review of catalytic converter theft reports submitted to Little Rock police from January 2021 to mid-September 2022 revealed several trends. A Freedom of Information Act request turned up about 88 reports of theft in 2021, and 41 by Sept. 15 of this year.

Firstly, the reports were overwhelmingly from businesses reporting the theft of multiple converters, often from company vehicles, vehicles for sale or customer vehicles in the shop for repair.

In one instance from May 2021, someone stole converters from 17 separate vehicles at an auto repair shop. In July, thieves stole a converter from a truck that was in a west Little Rock auto shop awaiting repairs from damage done during an earlier attempted catalytic converter theft in Dallas.

Last October, an employee at an auto shop on south University Avenue told police that thieves had stolen 30 converters from various vehicles on his lot, the most of any single report, although officers did not appear to directly verify that report.

It's not that individual thefts don't happen, Barnes said, it's just that they're often drowned out by the "overwhelming amount of business and fleet" thefts.

These businesses with many vehicles often make juicy targets, and are not usually as well monitored as a suburban area where residents might park their personal vehicles.

"Everyone knows now that there's cameras and things on almost every house," Barnes said.

Secondly, most thieves preferred to strike lots of businesses that were closed over the weekend, presumably giving them ample time to remove and make off with the parts. Usually the thefts were at night, but not always.

Daylight thefts are not out of the question, Barnes said.

Many of the victims did not report the thefts until Monday, and sometimes had little idea when the thieves were actually present, making the job of investigating the theft more difficult.

Fences were often cut to allow access to a lot, and even when the thieves were captured on security cameras, the evidence seemed to rarely contribute to any arrest.

Often, thieves struck the same businesses multiple times, although it was impossible to know if the same people were the culprits each time.

An employee at the U-Haul store at 4809 W. 65th St. asked police in May if they could put up a security camera after catalytic converters were stolen from their work vehicles twice in as many months. Thieves were run off during an attempted third theft at that location, the reports show.

Other frequently hit locations included Dash Heating and Cooling on Cantrell Road, Golden Collision Center on Seven Acres Drive and Donnie's Foreign Car Service on Markham Park Drive.

City and state government vehicles were also at risk, with thefts reported from lots and vehicles owned by Little Rock's city maintenance and the state's departments of health, agriculture and human services.

Thirdly, although some similarities appeared in the suspects seen by witnesses, arrests were infrequent.

Witnesses at least three times mentioned a group of thieves in a black Dodge Charger stealing converters.

In another report, an officer investigating a suspicious U-Haul truck noted that officers were aware of "individuals in rental trucks going around and stealing catalytic converters off of commercial vehicles."

Because it's very difficult to track stolen parts back to specific vehicles, solid arrests are hard for officers to make, Barnes said. He didn't speak directly on the reports of similar vehicles or stolen rental trucks involved in multiple thefts.

"You have to be able to piece back to who the victim is," Barnes said.

That's one of the reasons why Barnes encouraged businesses or residents concerned about theft to mark their catalytic converters in some way so that they can be traced back to the theft if they are recovered.

In one April incident, officers encountered a man with several cut-off catalytic converters, cut copper piping and an electric saw. The items were photographed for reference, but no charges connected to converter theft were mentioned in the report, presumably because the officers couldn't prove the parts were stolen.

Nationally, catalytic converter theft has risen sharply, with 3,389 thefts reported in 2019 and 14,433 reported in 2020, according to a March 2022 report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau. That's an increase of 325% in one year.

The parts are valuable because of the precious metals -- platinum, palladium and rhodium -- contained within, which can also make them expensive to replace.

In March, rhodium was valuated at $20,000 an ounce, with palladium at $2,938 per ounce and platinum at $1,128 an ounce, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau's report.

Little Rock police have notified scrap buyers in the area to be aware of stolen materials, Barnes said, and some scrappers have provided police with recovered materials, but it's practically impossible to track the scrap to a certain case. In some cases, scrap dealers may not even have a good way of telling that they're buying stolen materials.

Keeping away thieves is "a tall task" for business owners, Barnes said, but in addition to clearly marking their parts so they can be identified by detectives, placing vehicles in well-lit lots can also dissuade thieves.

Police have noticed areas frequently hit by converter thieves and rolled out additional patrols in those areas, Barnes said, in an attempt to scare off thieves with their presence. It can be difficult, though, for officers to balance these extra patrols with regular calls for services.

"We're trying to pay extra attention," Barnes said.


Upcoming Events