Cat Burglars

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

Amid a catalytic converter crime wave in 2021, legislators tweaked the state’s laws banning the unauthorized sale or transport of scrap metals.

The following year, prosecutors put those changes to use. WW recently requested from the state a list of charges brought under laws affected by Senate Bill 803, which was designed to ease prosecution of people caught illegally trafficking in stolen catalytic converters.

What we found: In 2021, charges under those laws were brought in only one case. It was the theft of wiring and other scrap metal from an unfinished residential development in Forest Grove. 2022, however, was a different story. Prosecutors brought 65 charges in around a dozen cases.

And it appears that some of those prosecutions, at least, have made a difference.

In 2023, there was only a single charge, filed nearly six months ago, on Jan. 2. As WW first reported last week, that’s one of several signals that the catalytic converter theft spree is on the decline.

Gresham police report catalytic converter thefts are down 80% this year. In Portland, it’s harder to say, because police won’t. A spokesman for the Portland Police Bureau told WW last year that the bureau doesn’t have that data “on demand anymore” due to the high volume of public record requests. WW submitted a request for updated numbers May 31 and has yet to receive them.

Still, there’s ample evidence that the crime is down across Portland. “We still get a few,” says Jerry Clemmer, a mechanic at Darrel’s Economy Mufflers on Southeast 82nd Avenue, “but not nearly as much as we were.”

It’s helped that prices for precious metals contained in emission reduction devices have come back to earth after skyrocketing during the pandemic.

So, with the cat burglary wave receding, who actually got busted? WW reviewed the charges.

THE LAKE OSWEGO SYNDICATE

In August, Beaverton police busted a $22 million catalytic converter trafficking ring run from a suburban lake house. Its alleged ringleader, Brennan Doyle, 33, was a former Uber driver who allegedly teamed up with a few pals to purchase catalytic converters in bulk from street dealers, then shipped them cross country to New Jersey, where a separate criminal ring extracted the devices’ precious metals and sold them to a local refinery (“From Portland to Jersey,” WW, Nov. 20, 2022).

Doyle has been charged with 19 counts of the unlawful purchase of “metal property,” a misdemeanor, among other far more serious charges like racketeering and money laundering. His attorney withdrew from the case in April, and Doyle is waiting to be assigned a public defender. Five of Doyle’s associates also face scrap metal charges in Washington County.

THE BEND KINGPIN

Doyle, however, wasn’t the Oregonian hit with the most scrap metal charges last year. That honor goes to 25-year-old Cedrus