Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/17/man-stops-in-traffic-to-steal.html
…
1 Like
The thief hides his face, but not his license plate. Clever.
I suppose it could be a stolen car as well, still this doesn’t seem the brightest move.
15 Likes
Right of salvage?
5 Likes
Finders keepers.
9 Likes
r/donthelpjustfilm
In the time it took to record this, would it not have been possible to call 999?
4 Likes
0118 999 881 119 7253
13 Likes
Libberate, not steal. It was being oppressed!
My neighbor had a catalytic converter stolen from his brand new car a few months back, as did others in my neighborhood. We heard no sound and we are up at night, and it must of made a hell of a racket.
According the the police (or my neighbor), they aren’t going directly to the metals recyclers, but rather through intermediaries. Th thieves sometimes getting just a few dollars to ten or twenty bucks for something that might normally be worth a few hundred to the scrap yard, and up to a few thousand for to the car owner.
3 Likes
Nice reference. 
5 Likes
Whether it’s skells like this one or brick thieves in St Louis or copper piping strippers in Detroit, I always get a real fall-of-Rome vibe when the opportunistic criminals are this brazen about their penny-ante heists.
16 Likes
2 Likes
Note to the guy videoing this: ask your mate who is sat next to you to please and kindly get out and go hop in the larcenous man’s VW and, you know, drive away.
Easy peasy and would’ve made for some hilarious schadenfreude.
Opportunity lost.
6 Likes
This is the kind of economy our President is working to give every American.
9 Likes
Jesus. Last week someone broke into my garage and stole the battery out of my car. And my iPhone charger.
The (sorta) funny part was they had the courtesy to not strip or chop my battery holder rods - and kindly put the nuts back on.
I understand car batteries and cat converters are used for meth operations.
https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1327269&start=40
Fucking thieving meth head chem wizards
10 Likes
We had our parking lot hit a couple of times at my old place. They can be in an out very quickly on certain models.
I had to get one replaced and it was like $700.just for the part itself. I just wonder how much the platinum inside would cost on it’s own?
4 Likes
Reference says 3 to 7 grams, at about $25/gram, it’s actually worth something. Edit: of course, that’s the price per gram of pure refined platinum in a salable format (coins or bars) from a legal source. The best case for this thief is he might get $100 for it, if there’s $200 worth of platinum in it. Probably he’s making $50 or less. Of course, that’s for a few minutes of work, and his risks probably aren’t high. The damage to the car is probably $2,000 or more, when you consider buying parts, dealer installation, repairing the damaged connecting pipe.
3 Likes
About a quarter of the price of the finished product, to a scrap metal dealer*. So say $175. The scrap metal dealer buys the item from a fence for about $120 at most, and the fence buys it from meth heads and skells like the genius in the video for $20-30.
It’s an economy of waste, vandalism, sleaze, and human misery. Or, as noted above,
But, hey, we’re gonna have a big ol’ wall/Brexit to keep out the brown people, so it’s totally worth it!
[* a lot of jurisdictions tightly control commerce in the catalytic converters themselves, so shady auto parts re-sellers aren’t a big market]
7 Likes
Given that the thief tosses a big floor jack in the back seat of the VW, I’d say they probably did as much damage to the interior of the car as they could get for the catalytic converter on the black market. Either doubly-stupid or it’s a stolen vehicle.
2 Likes
This is UK. Driver was in driver’s seat. Open door was passenger side. Miscreant shown was passenger. Walking up and trying to drive it away would have resulted in a crobwar at best, a knife most likely, or a gun at worst.
Better would have been some innocent soul coming the other way in a 3 ton truck and blocking his exit not realising what was going on. I’d have been tempted to go around, park at the other end, lock the car and walk away swiftly. With my phone dialling 999. But saloon bar bravery is cheap.
8 Likes
what? no one claiming the real crime is the video orientation yet? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
9 Likes
