For Macon Garway, Dec. 23 started out like any other Thursday.
He left his Newark apartment around 8:50 a.m. and headed to his car, ready to spend another day delivering medical equipment and supplies to hospitals and nursing homes in the area. But when he started the vehicle, he heard an “extremely loud sound.”
He got out of the car and popped the front hood, praying it wasn’t an engine problem. Repairs would be expensive, and money was tight with Christmas only a few days away.
The sound, he soon realized, was actually coming from the bottom of the car. He crawled down underneath the vehicle to find the back of his exhaust pipe hanging on the ground with the catalytic converter gone.
“I never expected this to happen,” Garway said. “Never in my wildest dreams.”
Garway was just one of many growing victims of catalytic converter thefts in Delaware. The converters – which make car exhaust gas less toxic before it’s released into the air – are made of precious metals like platinum, palladium and rhodium. These materials can be scraped or chemically extracted and sold for an ever-increasing profit in resale.
Police nationwide have seen a similar pattern in the past year, Wilmington Police Department spokesman David Karas said, and “Wilmington has not been immune to this trend.”
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Karas said that in 2020, Wilmington police reported 11 cases of stolen catalytic converters. The next year, there were 161.
These thefts are occurring outside New Castle County, too – and the victim is not always a private citizen.
According to court records obtained by Delaware Online/The News Journal, Delaware State Police arrested a man on Jan. 14 for stealing catalytic converters in Kent and Sussex Counties from vehicles belonging to local charities and businesses. Targets ranged from the Salvation Army to the Delaware Department of Transportation, and even included a bus service for senior citizens in the Georgetown area.
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The suspect – a 33-year-old man from Camden, Delaware – committed this string of catalytic converter thefts in November and December across southern Delaware, police said, and into Salisbury, Maryland.
Police said the man crawled under the vehicles and used a red reciprocating saw blade from Home Depot to cut through the metal beneath them. The blade left streaks of “red residue” behind on the scene, according to court documents.
This clue, along with video surveillance and witness testimony that identified the man as having a stiff, “unique gait” ultimately led to his arrest.
He was charged with theft, trespassing and disrupting public services in association with five stolen catalytic converters, according to court documents. Police also said there may have been more thefts that went unreported.
Victims of catalytic converter theft should immediately contact police, Karas said. Anyone with information about these thefts is encouraged to contact Det. Joran Merced at 302-576-3637 or joran.merced@cj.state.de.us.
Send story tips or ideas to Hannah Edelman at hedelman@delawareonline.com. For more reporting, follow them on Twitter at @h_edelman.