Pair of Long Islanders among 21 catalytic converter thieves arrested in five states, U.S. prosecutors say

A band of 21 catalytic converter thieves that amassed more than half a billion dollars has been arrested in five states, including two in New York — a father and son who live on Long Island, federal prosecutors said.

“This national network of criminals hurt victims across the country,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement released Wednesday. “They made hundreds of millions of dollars in the process — on the backs of thousands of innocent car owners.”

Serving 32 search warrants, federal prosecutors said officers “seized millions of dollars in assets, including homes, bank accounts, cash, and luxury vehicles,” in New York, California, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia.

Two indictments were unsealed on Wednesday, one in the Eastern District of California and one in the Northern District of Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma indictment included the two Long Islanders, Adam Sharkey, 26, of West Islip, and Robert Gary Sharkey, 57, of Babylon.

Prosecutors said the two Sharkeys and the other 11 defendants indicted by the Oklahoma grand jury were charged with 40 counts of conspiracy to receive stolen catalytic converters, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and other related charges.

The Department of Homeland Security, which took part in the arrests, says it does not comment on ongoing investigations, including about the status of the Sharkeys.

The nine defendants indicted in California, including one New Jersey resident also named in the Oklahoma case, also were charged with 40 counts, including conspiracy to transport stolen catalytic converters, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and other related charges.

Thefts of catalytic converters have skyrocketed in the past few years with the prices of the precious metals they contain — palladium, platinum, and rhodium. The value of those metals can top that of gold, the officials said, and black-market prices for just one catalytic converter can top $1,000, “depending on the type of vehicle and what state it is from,” they said.

“They can be stolen in less than a minute,” the prosecutors said, adding that their attractions for thieves include how difficult it is to trace the car owners. These parts often have no serial numbers or other ways of identifying them.

New Jersey apparently was a crucial hub for the thieves.

DG Auto Parts LLC, with its “multiple locations” in the state, is where the stolen catalytic converters were shipped, and where the precious metal powders were extracted, through a process called “de-canning,” prosecutors said. The younger Sharkey received more than $45 million in wired funds from DG Auto, they said.

“DG Auto sold the precious metal powders it processed from California and elsewhere to a metal refinery for over $545 million,” prosecutors said. The refinery was not named.

In Newark alone, more than 200 pallets of catalytic converters were confiscated, along with “exotic automobiles” whose value exceeded $2 million, more than $1 million in cash, 29 ounces of gold, jewelry and “several high-value handbags,” the Newark Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations said in a separate statement. 

In October, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed bills “targeting unauthorized and illegal vehicle dismantlers, or ‘chop shops,’” to crack down on these thefts, which she said this year alone totaled 1,549 in Nassau and 819 in Suffolk. 

Specifically, New York's chop shops now must keep records of how many catalytic converters they take in — and report that total every 60 days. Further, car dealers must have kits to etch unique serial numbers onto the converters so the owners can be found if the converters are stolen.

The thefts can prove costly for car owners.

"It can cost a dealer $2,000 to $3,000 to replace a stolen converter in order to fix damage to a vehicle's undercarriage, fuel line, and electric lines in the process of a theft," Hochul said.