Police are investigating reports of catalytic converters stolen at two Austintown businesses over the past week.

The latest report came Monday morning when the owner of Second Nature Landscaping discovered that someone had cut the converters from three of the vehicles at his business over the weekend.

Last Thursday, a Columbus man told officers that someone stole the converter from his Honda Element SUV that had been parked outside the Hampton Inn on Canfield Niles Road.

According to a report published by the Congressional Research Service last year, thefts of catalytic converters, a key part of the emission control systems of internal combustion vehicles, are on the rise.

 

The National Insurance Crime Bureau reports that the number of stolen catalytic converters increased nearly every month in 2020.

NICB reports that 2,347 catalytic converters were stolen in December 2020 alone, up from 652 such thefts in January 2020. A total of 14,433 catalytic converters were stolen in 2020, according to NICB data, compared to 3,389 such thefts in 2019.

NICB theft data are based on a review of submitted insurance claims, so they likely undercount the actual number of catalytic converter thefts, according to the CRB report.

A catalytic converter is a device used to reduce emissions from a vehicle’s exhaust system. It contains a catalyst for chemically converting pollutants in exhaust gases into less harmful compounds.

They contain precious metals such as rhodium, platinum, and palladium, the price of which have risen sharply due to supply chains disrupted during the pandemic.

Prices for these three metals doubled between March 2020 and June 2021.

Thieves sell stolen catalytic converters to scrap yards that in turn sell them to recyclers who strip them of their precious metals.