Calgary police are warning vehicle owners after seeing a massive spike in recent catalytic converter thefts in the city.
According to Calgary police statistics there’s been 369 reported thefts so far this year, compared to 147 reported in all of 2025.
Sgt. Nick Wilsher with the Calgary Police Crime Prevention unit says one of the factors triggering the trend of these thefts is the increase in value of the metal.
“We know that the metals contained in the converter is worth a lot more money than it was last year so that’s kind of triggering people wanting to try and find an easy buck to start thinking, ‘Well, it’s worth more. I’ll get more,’” he says.
Global News has obtained a video from a homeowner that recorded one of these thefts happening in broad daylight in the community of Sunnyside around 12:13 p.m. on Tuesday.
Three people can be seen in the video walking towards a parked vehicle, then one of them crawls underneath. The trio is gone by 12:15 p.m. along with the catalytic converter.
Security video records as a catalytic converter is stolen from a parked car in the community of Sunnyside on Tuesday.
Obtained by Global News
“That is the biggest problem with this,” says Sgt. Wilsher. “It is such a quick and easy offence to commit and it’s one of those where you can do it quickly and nobody’s really noticing. It’s that quick that a lot of people don’t notice.”
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That’s what happened to Kelsey Alain earlier this week. She also lives in Sunnyside and says she didn’t notice that she was a victim until she tried to start her car.
“There was a really loud rumble or kind of roar, and I realize something was wrong and then I looked underneath my car and sure enough someone tried to cut the pipe, either side of my catalytic converter. Luckily, they didn’t take it.”
The Alberta Motor Association website says around 4,800 catalytic converters are stolen across the province every year. It also has a number of prevention recommendations, including parking your vehicle in well lit areas and in a way that no one can get underneath it, or having the converter welded right to the vehicle.
Another is having the vehicle identification number engraved right on to the converter, which the website say makes it “harder for thieves to sell and easier for police to trace.”
They partnered with Kal Tire in recent years to make that engraving available at a low cost to the customer.
“Catalytic converters are very expensive,” says Kal Tire employee Marie Alexander. “They typically are very expensive, so preventative of having your (converter) engraved is probably a good idea because that stops it … usually,” she says.
Alexander says depending on the vehicle, replacing a catalytic converter could cost the vehicle owner at least $1,000.
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