Farm equipment dealers are encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers if they wish to participate
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
A program to help protect vehicles from parts thefts is now available in rural Manitoba.
Winnipeg Crime Stoppers’ Save Your Cat program works with auto shops to prevent catalytic converter thefts.
A vehicle owner can bring his or her car into a participating location and have the catalytic converter engraved with the car’s serial number and sprayed with high-visibility paint for free.
“We supply the paint and engravers to the participating shops,” Paul Johnson, past chairperson of Winnipeg Crime Stoppers, told Farms.com. “The paint is bright yellow or bright orange and is rated for high heat, so it doesn’t wear off.”
Winnipeg Crime Stoppers photo.
Catalytic converters change harmful substances in a car’s exhaust gases into carbon dioxide and water vapour.
They are targets for thieves because they contain precious metals like platinum, palladium and rhodium.
An original catalytic converter from a Ford F series truck, for example, can be worth anywhere between $150 and $900 to a scrap yard, different industry websites say.
If the part is stolen, the vehicle owner could pay up to $1,000 to replace it.
As of now, no farm equipment dealers are on the list of participating locations.
But any equipment dealers or farm repair shops wanting to be involved are encouraged to get in contact with program organizers, Johnson said.
“If this is something farmers are having an issue with, or just want some extra protection, I’d ask the dealers to give us a call and we’ll ship out all the supplies they need,” he said.
Property crime is an issue in rural Manitoba.
Between April 2022 and 2023, parts of the province saw an increase in property crime, data from the Manitoba RCMP says.
And during that time, most regions of the province experienced a rise in thefts under $5,000.
The largest increase came in the north, where the number of instances of theft under $5,000 went from 70 in April 2022 to 114 in April 2023.
Anyone looking for more information about the Save Your Cat program can contact Paul Johnson at (204) 771-0472 or by email.