Thieves harvest parts from cars broken down along Tri-Cities highway

Thieves hacked catalytic converters off three vehicles left on the side of Interstate 182 in recent days.

The vehicles were broken down on the side of the highway — one at the I-82 and 1-182 interchange, a second near the Road 100 exit and a third by the exit for Highway 395.

Sometime in the past few days, a thief slid under the vehicles and hacked off the piece of the exhaust system that sits between the engine and the muffler, said Washington State Patrol Trooper Chris Thorson.

And last week, a trooper spotted someone underneath a pickup on Highway 397 in east Kennewick.

He became suspicious and stopped by the truck and found the man was trying to take off the converter. The saw had broken when he was only part way through the job.

The man was cited with attempted second-degree theft and malicious mischief and later released.

The country is seeing an increasing number of crooks slip underneath cars and take the piece of the exhaust system that’s designed to convert environmentally hazardous exhaust into less harmful gasses.

As part of the process, car manufacturers use platinum, palladium and rhodium. In recent years, those metals have spiked in price, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, a not-for-profit company dedicated to fighting insurance fraud.

The bureau reported that nationwide thefts have gone up from 108 thefts on average in 2018 to an average of 1,203 thefts in 2020.

Pasco, Kennewick and Richland have reported an increasing number of the thefts, including one in January that took place in a business parking lot on Clearwater Avenue.

In March, an investigation into a suspected ring of catalytic converter thieves led to the discovery of a stolen playground slide in a child’s bedroom.

People are allowed to leave their car parked safely to the side of the road while they get help, but they may be better served to get the vehicle towed as soon as possible, Thorson said.