Still, regulated how? What you're talking about is criminal activity. Are regulations the antidote to that?
And would you really turn down a million dollars if someone showed up and offered it to you with no questions asked? I'd like to think I would, but that'd be a tough decision.
(One thief group got caught with $300k in cash. That means whoever they sold the converters to must've made way more, by definition.)
Perhaps similar to pawn shops, which (I think) have to keep records of who sold you what. If you are a smelter, you should be able to account for where you get certain expensive metals that you are on-selling.
Eg. signed ownership document for every catalytic converter on premises (scrap yards,...), with a written 'source' - eg, removed from car with VIN 123...789, or replaced on care with VIN 123...789 with a proof of purchase of a new one (i'm guessing it's illegal to drive without one).
It's a pain in the ass to implement, but could work.
But that'll never happen. Customs needs to keep up the facade that 'it's keeping you safe' by wasting your time.
Suppose that 10% of affected bussiness buy catalytic converter illegally and that an audit will determine di 90% accuracy whether a shop does buy catalytic converter illegally or not, then half* of fined business will end up being innocent (In practice including lax bookkeping and edge cases not considered in the law)
* I = innocent, F = fined, G = Guilty P(I|F) = P(F|I)P(I)/P(F) = P(F|I)P(I)/(P(F|I)P(I) + P(F|G)P(G)) = (0.1 * 0.9)/(0.10.9 + 0.10.9) = 0.5
I am pro regulation in almost all cases, but it is not easy...
Not easy, just easier.
Pinpointing those companies that see large growth in an old, competitive or low-margin industry, is a risk-indicator that allows you to filter out many companies and investigate only a few. Seeing that some are selling large fractions of palladium, is a risk-indicator.
Appearing at these companies with fake offers to sell palladium, can give insight.
Requiring source-of-scrap forms to be filled in, can give a paper-trail that either leads somewhere, or is obviously fake and leads nowhere. If that happens routinely, licenses could be revoked.
Don't get me wrong, none of this solves the issue and none of it is easy. It'll always be a cat and mouse game. AML regulations have shown to be quite ineffective at rooting out the problem, it's very much alive and kicking and perhaps even bigger than ever. Yet it seems also obvious that, much, much more money laundering would be happening in absence of any such regulations. Regulations can be helpful without solving the entire problem, if well designed (AML is very much a clusterfuck for example).
Yes, the creation of a regulation with a civil (cash) and personal (imprisonment) penalty is required in order to create enforcement actions. Then you load up a van full of Catalytic converters and drive to metal places and offer to sell them, if they accept, they arrest who ever accepted and seize assets of the owning entity.
Not a lawyer but had a brief introduction to the entrapment defense as a youngster. As explained to me, in the US, an entrapment defense requires the prevention of choice on the part of the criminal.
So if the LEO offers the converters and the guy says "Get out of here with those things!" then no arrest and no entrapment.
If the LEO says, "I work at a place that replaces catalytic converters and we need to convert these older non-working ones to cash." Then the person making the choice can reasonably say he believed that it was a legal transaction, so even if he is arrested the defense would be entrapment.
I will leave the other script (LEO is the buyer) as an exercise for the reader :-)
Not quite. It's more like that the LEO entices or coerces the alleged criminal into committing a criminal act they otherwise would not have done. A legit sting just offers the opportunity to commit an illegal act. Once law enforcement starts using persuasive or coercive tactics, then, you cross over into entrapment. That means that both of your scenarios are actually legit stings, absent any further interaction.
See https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/entrapment-basics-33...
Catalytic converters, like many auto parts, have serial numbers on them. Tracking these should be standard practice for scrapyards. Furthermore, scrapyards should be subject to random surprise inspections to enforce this.
Furthermore, the palladium in catalytic converters should be doped with traceable radioactive isotopes and an enforcement scheme put in place to catch unscrupulous smelters who melt down the catalytic converters and attempt to sell the metal on the open market.
See: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/18/stash-house-st...
This kind of regulation already exists for pawn shops. Just expand it to cover more types of items and businesses.
"but we currently do X!"
That's... a weird line of argument?
How was it obvious it would change workflows before his comment? I didn't see discussion of the relative frequency of this type of action, and instead I saw much suggestion that "shady smelters" were necessarily involved as scrupulous shops wouldn't do this. The commenter's added perspective helped inform mine
> it in no way suggests why the changes would be a problem, or would be useless
You have no sense of why suddenly complicating the lives of blue collar workers with some regulations punishing a separate action would be met with resistance? I am not sure why this person would have to explicitly write this all out for you, it was obvious to me in first reading.
I suggest you interpret other's comments with a bit more charity, you are the one who is not adding to this conversation much more than the one you criticize for such because you are somehow unable to consume context or subtext.
What if car manufacturers just changed their designs so that catalytic converters weren't so easy to steal that a drug addled person could do it en masse with a battery powered tool?
Like maybe we can just nip this problem at the source so that everyone else doesn't have to change how they do business.
You save what?
Usually deliver a truck load to the recycling plant. I always have to show ID and they often cut a check if it's over a certain dollar amount.
So there are definite attempts to keep a light on things to prevent black markets and stay credible and prevent fraud.
Copper piping is also a big problem area. Thieves will go and strip entire houses of all copper piping in a night.
The only controls that work are with limited source scrap like railroad equipment. You’ll get banned from a scrapyard if you show up with rail ties or signal components.
Sure, work to ensure prosperity. But don’t let that stop you from implementing faster, more tractable solutions.
To a large extent this is organized crime. These are not thefts of desperation caused by poverty, and the thefts are not perpetrated by individuals stealing one or two catalytic converters at a time. There are crews of thieves stealing dozens of converters in a night and selling them in bulk to unscrupulous purchasers.