Two Moorpark students returned to their trucks after class in the Moorpark College parking lot only to see nuts and bolts lying underneath their vehicle. They notified Moorpark Campus Police right away, and found out that the catalytic converter had been stripped and stolen from their vehicles.
Lt. Bob Escobedo has had several reports of this happening to students, oddly enough with this specific car.
“Toyota Tacomas seem to be the easy target right now, they are high off the ground and it only takes four bolts to be unscrewed and the converter comes out,” said Lt. Bob Escobedo. “In this particular circumstance it was two incidents in one day, but it’s happened on all three Ventura Community College Campuses over the course of a couple semesters now.”
A catalytic converter is a device used to convert toxic exhaust emissions from an internal combustion engine into non-toxic substances. A replacement runs around $1,000 on average, pending on the vehicle.
Lt. Escobedo says that the mechanical piece itself can be turned around and sold for a good profit. Most people don’t want to spend the money going to an auto repair shop, because of the labor charges in addition to the cost of a brand new converter.
Contrary to belief, this crime is still just a petty theft, as opposed to grand theft. The value of the item stolen is not measured by retail value, or even wholesale. The value is measured by the current condition of the item stolen. How old the vehicle’s catalytic converter is will determine its value. Grand theft is only put into affect if the item stolen is over $850.
There is no doubt that it takes an extraordinary amount of gumption to crawl under a vehicle and remove a big mechanical piece from the under carriage in a public parking lot. What is even more baffling, is that no one has matched the gumption by simply asking what these thieves are doing.
Campus Police want people to be aware of these crimes on campus and challenge students to take a stand by reporting any suspicion. Even if these converter kidnappers have uniforms on notify Campus Police at 805-378-1455.
