Video, photos catch thieves stealing catalytic converters in broad daylight on Memorial Day
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Neighborhood watch groups are abuzz over a team of thieves stealing catalytic converters in broad daylight.
CBS 2's Tim McNicholas tracked multiple images showing their busy and brazen Memorial Day.
Home security video shows the thieves hop out of a black car, grab their tools from the trunk and then move to this car parked near Clark and Diversey.
They even lift the car up using a jack and then, three minutes later, one emerges with Nate Churchill's catalytic converter.
Tim: And this was in broad daylight it was like 11:50?
Nate: Yeah
Tim: What's your reaction to that?
Nate: Pretty brazen, right in the middle of Memorial Day, I was having lunch here and didn't even see what was going on.
And just a half-hour before that theft, a woman snapped a photo a few miles away near Augusta and Rockwell.
"It was exactly the same. Like they used the same lift for the car."
Natalie Wubben says she spotted these two trying to steal a catalytic converter, yelled at them, and then they drove off.
Their getaway car is the same make, model, and color as the one in Churchill's video, and then there's the red sweater spotted at both locations. Wubben says there was also a third person who stayed in the car.
"It's awful. I literally cannot believe that they think well, they can get away with it in the middle of broad daylight," Wubben said.
Chicago police don't track catalytic converter thefts specifically, but car insurance companies say they've seen a dramatic increase.
State Farm says from January through April of this year, they paid 1,170 catalytic converter theft claims in Illinois. That's more than triple the same time frame from last year, and the numbers have been rising since 2019.
"You feel really bad when it happens, felt violated, and we just recently moved here from Brazil to get away from crime, and here we are with a lot of crime around Chicago," Churchill said.
The State of Illinois recently passed a law aimed at preventing catalytic converter thefts. It requires scrapyards and metal dealers to keep detailed records on the catalytic converters they buy and who they buy them from.
Churchill hopes it works.
"I don't have the luxury of having a garage with my house here, so I don't know exactly how to avoid the problem," he said.
For now, he's stuck footing the bill at the repair shop.
And it's a problem growing in the suburbs as well. Schaumburg police say last year they had 177 catalytic converter thefts. They've already surpassed that this year with 224 so far.
