It takes minutes to steal a car's catalytic converter. What's being done to deter thieves.

The first hint something was amiss was when Tommy Garbacki started the minivan — and it sounded like the muffler had a hole in it.

So, he moved the family’s 2004 Honda Odyssey, the one they’d been saving to use as a first car for son Logan, off the street and into the driveway.

“I look under the car,” Garbacki recalled, “and I said, ‘Oh [expletive]!' ”

The minivan’s catalytic converter was gone.

His home surveillance video showed that two nights earlier, at 3:04 a.m., a Honda Civic pulled up alongside their Odyssey and parked on the street outside their home in Hicksville. While one man jacked up the minivan and stood lookout, another dove under it with an electric reciprocating saw. Garbacki and his wife, Tina, reported the theft to Nassau County police.

“Less than seven minutes,” Tina Garbacki said. “That’s how long it took. You think, ‘It’s safe. It’s locked. It’s right outside my house.’ Then you see this? It’s very violating.”

This was in June 2021. No one has been caught and charged with the crime, the Garbackis said.

Catalytic converter theft has become one of the hottest crimes in America in recent years, including on Long Island. Officials have run into challenges trying to investigate and prosecute, but there are some initiatives underway and steps vehicle owners can take to deter thieves.

NY ranks 8th in hotspots for catalytic converter thefts

A catalytic converter is a device that attaches to a vehicle exhaust system and converts toxic pollutants in the exhaust gas to less-toxic pollutants. It does so using three materials, some more valuable than gold: platinum, rhodium and palladium.

This makes converters expensive. For a new Ford Mustang, for instance, a converter goes for about $2,400 online, without installation; for a Honda Civic, with installation, the average cost is more than $3,000.

Nassau police said that between January and June, there were 779 reported catalytic converter thefts. Suffolk police said 644 were reported during that same time period. 

There were 2,284 catalytic converter thefts in Nassau in 2022, up from 472 in 2021 and just 100 in 2020. In Suffolk, there were 1,815 in 2022, up from 289 in 2021 and 170 in 2020.

The vehicle brands most targeted in Nassau were Honda, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Acura and Ford, according to police. Suffolk police could not provide this information.

Nationally, there were 64,701 reported thefts in 2022, up from 51,209 in 2021, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

The NICB ranked New York state eighth on its national list of hotspots for catalytic converter thefts — though its numbers appear vastly underreported compared to actual theft reports filed.

That’s because, the NICB said, their statistics are based on insurance claims, not police reports. Law enforcement officials said many of the thefts go unreported to insurance carriers.

The Garbackis, for instance, said they’d dropped coverages on their near-20-year-old minivan, which had a book value of about $3,000. They couldn’t claim the loss even if they’d wanted to. Staring at a $2,000 bill for a new converter for their Honda, they instead bought a used replacement — for $700.

“This new data is just a snapshot of an underreported crime that affects communities across the nation,” NCIB president and CEO David J. Glawe said in a statement.

A difficult crime to investigate and prosecute

Law enforcement officials say catalytic converter theft is a difficult crime to investigate and prosecute since converters often lack identifying numbers or features, making them difficult at best to trace to a particular theft. Often, maximum charges are minor because unless you can recover the precious metals inside, law enforcement can usually only prosecute for their value as scrap, officials said.

Nassau police said they made just two arrests for converter thefts in 2023 and 11 in 2022. Suffolk police didn’t have arrest numbers available.

“The problem is that in and of itself, the possession of a catalytic converter is not enough to charge grand larceny,” said Lt. Michael Grosso, an assistant zone commander for state police on Long Island.

Without an identifier, you can’t prove that a specific converter is from a specific theft, he said. "You can know it. But knowing it and proving it are two different things," Grosso said.

He added, "The cutters are still out there … coming into our driveways and, in most cases, within three minutes they have the catalytic converter cut from under your car.”

State and local police did arrest 21 catalytic converter thieves — including a father and son from Long Island — across five states last November in a nationwide crackdown of what the FBI said was a $545 million theft ring.

The raids, which included the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of law enforcement agencies, focused less on street-level thieves and instead on crews extracting the metals from the converters and the refineries processing the palladium, rhodium and platinum.

Still, thefts continue and so does the frustration of vehicle owners.

In May, a Bellerose man was arrested and charged in the fatal stabbing of an alleged thief attempting to steal tires and rims from his 2023 Toyota Highlander — just days after thieves stole the catalytic converter from his SUV, police said.

“You can understand his anger,” said Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick, commanding officer of Nassau's Homicide Squad, regarding the arrested vehicle owner, but added that he “took matters too far.”

Ways to deter catalytic converter thieves 

So what can you do to protect your vehicle?

For starters, AAA Northeast spokesman Robert Sinclair said, park in a well-lit area or park off the street, if possible.

“If you have a garage,” he said, “use it.”

If you park in your driveway, install a motion detector as a deterrent.

Sinclair and other experts say you can install a prefabricated protection box that welds around the converter, making it more difficult to steal. You also can spray-paint your converter or have an identification number etched onto it, making a stolen converter easier to trace — and, more difficult for thieves to unload on the black market.

Grosso said that this October, state police plan to partner with law enforcement agencies in Nassau and the NICB to etch identification numbers onto catalytic converters on residents’ vehicles. They hope to conduct a similar program in Suffolk. The NICB donated the etching kits, Grosso said. 

“It won’t help stop the theft itself,” he said, “but it will help with the prosecution of thieves — and that will provide a deterrent down the road, if we can get more arrests and convictions.”

Last fall, Gov. Kathy Hochul directed state police to ramp up enforcement, while urging local governments to access $20 million in funding for license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other anti-theft technology. The state also said it was cracking down on auto dismantlers, so-called chop-shops. 

In Nassau and Suffolk, law enforcement agencies have stepped up scrap-yard inspections and overnight patrols.

“I watch my camera at night now all the time,” Tina Garbacki said. “I see the officers patrolling our block. It doesn’t help me or what happened to us. But, at least I know they’re out there trying.”

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”