Compulsory since the 90s, the catalytic converter is a part of the exhaust system which is used to reduce polluting emissions from cars, in particular nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide (AFP/Archives/Damien MEYER)
When Olivier starts his car at the end of August, “a noise of a tractor” springs from the engine. Under his Toyota, “a piece” is missing: the catalytic converter. Rich in rhodium, a metal six times more expensive than gold, this coin is attracting the desires of more and more thieves.
“I have a hybrid car, my mechanic explained to me that it was very popular because technology means that the precious metal content is higher”, testifies to AFP Olivier Poncet, technical director of a studio. of video games in Paris.
Its catalyst, cut with an electric saw, was worth 2,500 euros. Settled in less than a minute, the case is profitable.
Since then, Olivier has had anti-theft nuts installed and, after another attempt at theft at the end of November, parks in another car park.
Compulsory since the 90s, the catalytic converter is a part of the exhaust system which serves to reduce the polluting emissions of cars, in particular nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide.
Its precious and rare components – rhodium therefore, but also platinum and palladium – have the property of transforming them into less dangerous products, such as nitrogen or water vapour.
On the very speculative metal markets, the volatile price of rhodium has exploded since 2020, the year of the price surge, under the effect of the recovery of the post-Covid automotive industry.
Three years ago, the gram of rhodium – of which only twenty tons are produced each year, for more than 80% in South Africa – was bought around 160 euros. On January 1, you had to pay more than twice as much, 335 euros.
The curve of the thefts of catalytic converters, which can contain up to 1.5 grams of rhodium, unsurprisingly followed the same trajectory.
– Raid –
“In the gendarmerie zone, we had around ten thousand thefts in 2022, up 50% compared to 2021”, reports General Marc de Tarlé, head of the Central Office for the Fight against Delinquency, to AFP. itinerant (OCLDI).
On the police side, 8,235 facts were recorded from January to October 2022, almost twice as many as in 2021 (4,193 facts) over the same period, according to figures from the Information, Intelligence and Strategic Analysis Service on organized crime (Sirasco).
Several profiles emerge among the offenders.
On the one hand, “French and foreign organized criminal groups which, in a logic of raids, target certain models of vehicles, according to the precious metal content of certain pots, in particular Toyota”, details William Hippert, head of Sirasco.
Once the raid is over, “the pots are collected at a collection point and then very quickly sent abroad in trucks, mixed with legal freight”, adds the commissioner. Poland, Germany and the Netherlands are the most observed destinations.
On the other hand, there is “local, opportunistic delinquency”, underlines General de Tarlé. “Anyone, by getting under a car, can go and cut two or three pots with a small electric saw and make a small ticket to the local recycler”, he continues.
Some recycling companies, not always attentive to the origin of the parts brought to them, feed the traffic by accepting cash payments.
“Whether it is an individual or a professional, the procedure is the same: there is a waste tracking slip, a purchase contract and bank traceability, by transfer or check”, explains the boss of a company. of the sector. Although his company has been in business for 10 years, he prefers to remain anonymous for security reasons.
Last May, one of its drivers was the victim of an ambush during a collection tour in Gironde. Threatened by three men, he was forced to abandon his van, loaded with 180 pots and a spectrometer with a total value of nearly 40,000 euros.
Arrested, the trio and an accomplice were sentenced in early December to terms ranging from one to three years in prison.
© 2023 AFP
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