Watch: Brazen catalytic converter thieves caught on camera
The woman comes nearly face-to-face with the thieves, startling him with a loud “excuse me”
A B.C. woman is sharing video footage of a catalytic converter theft she interrupted in broad daylight, literally shouting “excuse me” at the man scrambling out from under her work vehicle.
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The Surrey resident who filmed the incident at her home is remaining anonymous over concerns for her safety, but she told Global News that she first spotted the two men driving slowly by in a black sedan around 5 P.M.
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“I opened the patio door and all of a sudden I heard a drill start up, or I guess a saw, so I raced downstairs,” she told the news outlet. “The goal was to yell as loud as I could and sort of scare them away .. but by the time I came out the guy underneath the truck already had the converter, so I spooked him.”
The video starts with one of the men standing up and moving away from the side of what appears to be a white Ford van. He jumps a bit when the woman shouts at him and then runs toward black, plateless, black Ford Fusion. A second man, also wearing a mask and sunglasses, jumps in the getaway car’s driver seat and the pair speed off.
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“It was less than 30 seconds it took them to get it,” the anonymous filmer said. “I think they know they’re in and out so quickly that it doesn’t matter… His body language coming towards me was terrifying… I was way closer than I meant to be, so it was a complete panic… It escalated way faster than I would have ever wanted to.”
The quick and dirty nature of the crime has made it a growing problem in many of Canada’s city centres. According to B.C. provincial insurer ICBC, 1,189 catalytic converter thefts have already been reported in 2021, up from 1,060 in all of 2020. The total cost of all claims so far this year? $2.3 million dollars.
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But as frustrating as those statistics are, police do not advise interrupting a thief mid-crime.
“The value of these items and perhaps even the desperation of those who would seek to profit off this type of stolen property really is shown through the brazenness of this video,” Surrey RCMP Sgt. Elenore Sturko told Global News.
“We also don’t want to see people putting themselves at risk where they themselves might be confronting someone who is in the middle of committing a crime.”
Instead, police and ICBC suggest taking preventative measures such as parking in secure areas, using anti-theft devices like converter locks, and adjusting a vehicle’s alarm sensitivity to register a saw.