Apparent Catalytic Converter Thief Crushed to Death by Toyota Prius

At any given time, somewhere in the world, there are folks out there who will steal anything not bolted down. They might even steal things that are bolted down!

Hopefully, these folks won’t be anywhere near you. However, there are some situations and precautions to be taken just in case. In fact, there are entire industries based entirely on peoples’ bad will. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent on safety measures in order to prevent would-be criminals from executing their crimes. However, there are some situations that are really ridiculously impossible to prevent.

One example of such a situation would be protecting the catalytic converter on a vehicle. This part is a quick steal and can pay off big time for thieves. Sure, someone could attempt to park in an area where they aren’t likely to have their vehicle tampered with. They could even go so far as installing an onboard camera in order to detect if a criminal is nearby. However, some are able to swoop in and execute the theft of a catalytic converter in less than a minute. With that, the process could be hard to prevent. Unless the owner of the vehicle was able to catch them in the act, it might be nearly impossible, in fact.

Recently, in Anaheim, California, an a parent catalytic converter theft would go wrong. As the man was climbing under a Toyota Prius, likely to steal the catalytic converter, his jack would fail. Because of this, the Prius would fall on top of the man and crush him to death.

The Prius is believed to be a more sought-after model because the hybrid setup requires less use of the converter. With less use, a converter will be able to bring more return because the sought after metals inside are less likely to be worn away. Right now, the prices of these parts are at an all-time high which means that criminals are also on the lookout for any converter that they can get their hands on.