Nov. 3 (UPI) — Federal authorities have busted a nationwide catalytic converter theft ring, resulting in nearly two dozen arrests, the Justice Department said.
Federal, state and local law enforcement executed the coordinated operation Wednesday, targeting the operators and co-conspirators of this multimillion-dollar scheme to steal catalytic converters that were then sold to a New Jersey shop for processing.
Twenty-one people were arrested Wednesday in five states, the Justice Department said in a statement, adding that the law enforcement action consisted of arrests, 32 searches and seizures across California, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia.
“This national network of criminals hurt victims across the country,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said. “They made hundreds of millions of dollars in the process — on the backs of thousands of innocent car owners.”
The arrests come amid a surge in thefts of catalytic converters, which are a component of a vehicle’s exhaust system that reduces toxic gas and pollutants from its emissions.
Federal prosecutors charged the nearly two dozen defendants in two 40-count indictments, one charging nine people in the Eastern District of California and the other charging 13 in the Northern District of Oklahoma.
However, both revolve around New Jersey’s DG Auto.
The first case accuses brothers Tou Sue Vang, 31, and Andrew Vang, 27, as well as 51-year-old Monica Moua, all of Sacramento, Cal., of operating an unlicensed business from their home from where they’d buy stolen catalytic converts from local thieves and them ship them to DG Auto.
Federal prosecutors said they sold more than $38 million in the stolen components to the New Jersey shop.
All the other defendants in the case operated DG Auto in various locations throughout New Jersey. Prosecutors said they knowingly bought stolen converters. They then extracted the precious metals from the stolen components that they then sold to a metal refinery for more than $545 million, which the Justice Department has sought forfeiture of.
Similarly, the second case accuses the 13 defendants of buying stolen catalytic converters from thieves and re-selling them to DG Auto for processing.
“We really took out some of the major players who are involved throughout the United States,” Supervisory Special Agent Patricia Curran, who works criminal investigations out of FBI headquarters, said in a statement. “We want to put the message out there that we’re actively pursuing these investigations and trying to stem these thefts throughout the country.”
In recent years, catalytic converters have increasing become a target for theft, with BeenVerified, a background check company, stating in a September report that in the first seven months of the year catalytic converters surged 208% compared to all of 2020.
The company estimated that there were 44,500 catalytic converters stolen between January and July of this year, which is also increase of nearly 16% from last year.
