4 ms·

I feel like this is exactly like going after ivory poachers instead of the buyers at the other end. Who is creating a market for stolen catalytic converters? A

by grecy 4y ago

I feel like this is exactly like going after ivory poachers instead of the buyers at the other end. Who is creating a market for stolen catalytic converters? Are the precious metals being extracted, melted down and sold? to who and where? Put THOSE people in jail for the rest of their lives and change the setup so there is in incentive for anyone to even steal one in the first place.

duskwuff 4y ago
From the press release: > They knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters and, through a “de-canning” process, extracted the precious metal powders from the catalytic core. DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.
- grecy 4y ago
  So give the refinery a fine that is 10x their yearly profit, cripple it's leadership and make an "example" out of them. End their business, and make it clear that any metal refinery buying materials that could come from catalytic converters needs to be very, very careful and have extremely good documentation about where it actually comes from. I mean, when you're buying refined precious metal powders from inside the US, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where it's coming from.
  - rydifyrhffh 4y ago
  - cogman10 4y ago
    DG Auto is a nation wide operation. They aren't sending the contents of the cats over 1 cat at a time. It's not really reasonable to hold the refinery at fault, they were working with another major business dealing in large numbers. DG Auto is the right place to hit because they knew they were getting $38 million dollars of cats from 1 family and an unlicensed business (that family is also getting prosecuted). You wouldn't hold a refinery at fault for smelting down cars they got from a junkyard. They have no reason to suspect the junkyard is sending them stolen goods. Any resell business that deals with individuals is where the pressure belongs.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      > It's not really reasonable to hold the refinery at fault Why not? They accepted $500mil of stolen property. It's only fair to take at least as much from them. "I didn't know" is not an excuse. If you buy stolen car it will be taken away from you. You pay for your mistake and buying stolen goods is a mistake.
      - from 4y ago
        Hammurabi agrees with you (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp): 6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death. 9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant. 10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the lost article. But that's not how the law works in America. They have to prove the person had actual knowledge the property was stolen or should have known it was stolen. In this case it's easy because they had informants representing the property was stolen and the buyers still completed the sale. That's not always the case and can make these kinds of prosecutions harder. Cars are a little different because they are titled which makes disputes over ownership a lot more clear cut. And how was the refinery supposed to know to begin with? They never touched catalytic converters, they just got the metal powder from DG Auto. DG Auto was paid by wire transfer and from their perspective was probably not much different from any of their other scrap metal suppliers.
sergiotapia 4y ago
"You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you."
- djbusby 4y ago
  Gotta cite this quote. It's Lester Freamon from The Wire (USA TV)
- mortenjorck 4y ago
  Perhaps my greatest hope for this world is for The Wire to one day become dated, rather than staying tragically evergreen.
mardifoufs 4y ago
Ivory isn't like platinum. There are tons of recyclers that actually sell the precious metals they have obtained in a legal way. Scrap yards can sell their converters to middle men, who then resell them to the refineries. That makes it super hard to differentiate between legal and illegal bulk resellers for the refinery. In this case, the middle men (dgauto) handled the first recycling steps (removing the metal core from the converters), thus making it even harder or impossible to trace the metals back to stolen parts. Ivory, on the other hand, can be assumed to be illegally produced in 99% of the cases. If there are legal ways to even obtain new ivory, it's on the buyer to prove that their source is legal. That's not the case for catalytic cores.
bagels 4y ago
They're being sold to you and everyone else in new catalytic converters, for one. There are legitimate sources for these precious metals, and legitimate uses too. The parallel to ivory doesn't make any sense in that you don't have to kill Elephants to get Rhodium.

by grecy 4y ago

duskwuff 4y ago

From the press release: > They knowingly purchased stolen catalytic converters and, through a “de-canning” process, extracted the precious metal powders from the catalytic core. DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million.

grecy 4y ago
So give the refinery a fine that is 10x their yearly profit, cripple it's leadership and make an "example" out of them. End their business, and make it clear that any metal refinery buying materials that could come from catalytic converters needs to be very, very careful and have extremely good documentation about where it actually comes from. I mean, when you're buying refined precious metal powders from inside the US, it doesn't take a genius to figure out where it's coming from.
- rydifyrhffh 4y ago
- cogman10 4y ago
  DG Auto is a nation wide operation. They aren't sending the contents of the cats over 1 cat at a time. It's not really reasonable to hold the refinery at fault, they were working with another major business dealing in large numbers. DG Auto is the right place to hit because they knew they were getting $38 million dollars of cats from 1 family and an unlicensed business (that family is also getting prosecuted). You wouldn't hold a refinery at fault for smelting down cars they got from a junkyard. They have no reason to suspect the junkyard is sending them stolen goods. Any resell business that deals with individuals is where the pressure belongs.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    > It's not really reasonable to hold the refinery at fault Why not? They accepted $500mil of stolen property. It's only fair to take at least as much from them. "I didn't know" is not an excuse. If you buy stolen car it will be taken away from you. You pay for your mistake and buying stolen goods is a mistake.
    - from 4y ago
      Hammurabi agrees with you (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp): 6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death. 9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony--both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant. 10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the lost article. But that's not how the law works in America. They have to prove the person had actual knowledge the property was stolen or should have known it was stolen. In this case it's easy because they had informants representing the property was stolen and the buyers still completed the sale. That's not always the case and can make these kinds of prosecutions harder. Cars are a little different because they are titled which makes disputes over ownership a lot more clear cut. And how was the refinery supposed to know to begin with? They never touched catalytic converters, they just got the metal powder from DG Auto. DG Auto was paid by wire transfer and from their perspective was probably not much different from any of their other scrap metal suppliers.

sergiotapia 4y ago

"You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you."

djbusby 4y ago
Gotta cite this quote. It's Lester Freamon from The Wire (USA TV)
mortenjorck 4y ago
Perhaps my greatest hope for this world is for The Wire to one day become dated, rather than staying tragically evergreen.

mardifoufs 4y ago

Ivory isn't like platinum. There are tons of recyclers that actually sell the precious metals they have obtained in a legal way. Scrap yards can sell their converters to middle men, who then resell them to the refineries. That makes it super hard to differentiate between legal and illegal bulk resellers for the refinery. In this case, the middle men (dgauto) handled the first recycling steps (removing the metal core from the converters), thus making it even harder or impossible to trace the metals back to stolen parts. Ivory, on the other hand, can be assumed to be illegally produced in 99% of the cases. If there are legal ways to even obtain new ivory, it's on the buyer to prove that their source is legal. That's not the case for catalytic cores.

bagels 4y ago

They're being sold to you and everyone else in new catalytic converters, for one. There are legitimate sources for these precious metals, and legitimate uses too. The parallel to ivory doesn't make any sense in that you don't have to kill Elephants to get Rhodium.