Surveillance video shows the thieves looking around the property after they cut their way through a fence on the landscaping company’s property. Police said the two thieves walk out carrying a garbage can with a catalytic converter inside.
LILBURN, Ga. - Crooks stole more than $7,000 in catalytic converters from a landscaping company’s trucks. It happened last week at SKB Industries just off Lawrenceville Highway in Lilburn. The brazen thefts were caught on camera.
Surveillance video shows the thieves looking around the property after they cut their way through a fence on the landscaping company’s property. Police said the two thieves walk out carrying a garbage can with a catalytic converter inside.
"Once we went to crank the trucks, the catalytic converters had been cut out of four of the trucks," said Tyler Hagler, the company’s vice president. "They got away with seven catalytic converters."
Hagler said crooks stripped seven converters off four trucks. "It’s about anywhere from $1,000 to 1,100- bucks a truck," he said.
Hagler said criminals struck his company last winter as well. "They took six converters that time. It was about $3,000 we had to replace," Hagler said. That’s about $10,000 in total in six months.
"The black market can be very lucrative," said Capt. Scott Bennett with the Lilburn Police Department. Bennett said crooks can make a quick buck selling hot converters. "Rhodium was going for a little over $460 a gram. You got two or three grams of rhodium in each catalytic converter so you do the math."
Capt. Bennett urges car and truck owners to take steps to make it tougher for crooks to snag converters. "There are brackets, shield, mounts you can have added to your catalytic converter. You can etch your vehicle identification number of the catalytic converter and register it with the manufacturer," Bennett said.
Hagler said his company just that on its trucks. He says they also added more cameras, hoping crooks don’t strike again.
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