Businesses hopeful new permits will cut down on catalytic converter thefts

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Leach Camper Sales, near 27th and Cornhusker, has been targeted by catalytic converter thieves a handful of times over the last several years.

“We would start them up and they’d be really loud and realize the converters were gone,” Tyler Seite, a Sales Manager said. “It just went downhill from there, more and more every month, every quarter, until it got to a point where it was just a lot. I mean holiday weekends, we would lose 15 to 20 every holiday weekend. It’s just a big nightmare in addition to the expensive of it.”

They hired a third-party security company to do 24-hour surveillance on the lot and dropped a pretty penny on more advanced cameras. They also bought an etching machine so their logo is on every catalytic converter in their lot.

They say since then, they have seen a dramatic decrease. But even with all of that extra help, they still haven’t gone scot-free.

But with permits now mandatory in the county for buying and selling catalytic converters, this could finally be their saving grace.

“It’s going to stop a lot of it. The salvage yards, I don’t want to say they didn’t care, but what they didn’t know, didn’t hurt them, and if they were buying stolen parts they didn’t necessarily know. But now they at least have a permit, a name, things attached to it, that can help trickle it down if they do find one to be stolen,” Seite said.

If you want to buy or sell a catalytic converter in Lancaster County, you’ll now need a special $5.00 permit.

Police say this won’t stop thieves from going out of town to make the sale, but it will make them a bigger target for a longer period of time.

“It exposes them longer, in the sense that if you have to possess,” Brian Jackson, Assistant Chief of Lincoln Police said.” I may not go to Grand Island until next week. And that means you have to possess it that much longer; it gives us an opportunity to potentially identify and make an arrest or an intervention in those types of crimes.”

The permit is good for a full year and went into effect just a few weeks ago.