Oroville P.D. and J&J Auto Repair team to fight catalytic converter theft - Chico Enterprise-Record

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OROVILLE — On Saturday the Oroville Police Department and J&J Auto Repair held a free event open to everyone to have their catalytic converter serialized.

The serialization is a response to rising reports of catalytic converter thefts throughout the state and country. According to a study from BeenVerified, theft of catalytic converters within the first five months of 2021 was nearly 80 percent more than all reported thefts in 2020.

Eric Hutton, an officer with the Oroville Police Department was at J&J Auto Repair Saturday and said hopefully this helps curb the rise of cases.

“We’ve had catalytic converters thefts for some years now. However, for some reason, it’s ramping up and it’s moving to other model cars that we’ve never really seen being taken before,” Hutton said. “There was a time when it was just the Toyota Priuses and stuff like that. Now it kind of runs the gambit at this point.”

Cars received free serial numbers on their catalytic converters Saturday at J&J Auto Repair. (Riley Blake — Enterprise-Record)

Hutton said that once a thief has a catalytic converter, they recycle them for a profit.

“There’s a bunch of restrictions on that but somehow they’re getting around it and it’s kind of hard at this point to really pinpoint it,” Hutton explained. “We’re just doing what we can to kind of alleviate that from happening.”

Hutton said that if an officer comes across anyone with a catalytic converter with a serial number on it, the officer will be able to pull up a log. The officer then can search for the serial number and see if it’s been reported as stolen.

“Every once in a while you’ll see somebody that has a few in their vehicle in the back of their truck or you’ll see somebody that’ll have some at a scrapyard,” Hutton said. “It’s really hard to look at a catalytic converter and say, ‘Hey, that one belongs to a Toyota Camry or this belongs to that,’ so since the factory doesn’t put a serial number on it, we’re kind of doing this as part of the process.”

Debra Killgore was out Saturday having a serial number placed on her vehicle as a prevention method.

“Where I live at, I’m worried about somebody coming up and stealing it and I just don’t have the money to replace it,” Killgrove said. “I never would have thought someone actually had the time to get in there and steal it.

Killgrove added that the area she lives experienced a number of break-ins recently and with catalytic converter theft on the rise, any precautionary measure is worth it.

“I really appreciate the gentleman here doing this – it’s really nice they’re taking their time off to do it,” Killgrove said. “I would rather have this done and make sure my car is safe over having something happen later.”

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