Walnut Creek Police Catch Three In Catalytic Converter Theft

Before I go on, I need to say that I am totally car and engineering  ignorant. I don't know what a catalytic converter is. 

But live and learn the Wikipedia way, right? 

Well, whatever these devices are, they are hot commodities among Walnut Creek's criminal underground. As as our ace Police Beat writer, Creek Diva, has reported in numerous columns, some thief always seems to be lifting a catalytic from someone's car in the middle of the night. Creek Diva thinks it happens more often in her 'hood around Creekside Drive.

According to Wikipedia, a catalytic converter is a device used to reduce the array of emissions from an internal-combustion engine. Car burglars like them because of their "external location" on vehicles and their composition of precious metals, including platinum, palladium and rhodium. Target vehicles tend to be late-model Toyota trucks and SUVs because of their high-ground clearance and the easy access to their converters. 

Early Wednesday, police caught three men suspected of at least one theft of a catalytic converter, according to Walnut Creek police 

The suspects are David Fajardo, 55; Dustin Moorad, 31; and Morris Nunez, 40.  No hometowns were available. 

About 4:43 a.m. Wednesday, Walnut Creek officers responded to a report of a theft from a vehicle that had just occurred on Westcliffe Lane. The victim said the suspects were in a white Ford Ranger pickup. 

When officers located the pickup and stopped it, they found that the suspects were in possession of the catalytic converter reported stolen from the victim's car. They also found other catalytic converters in the pickup.

Clayton police arrested a suspect on Feb. 23 for a similar theft.

The three suspects arrested by Walnut Creek police were arrested on suspicion of grand theft, possession of burglary tools and stolen property, and conspiracy to commit theft. They were all transported to the Contra Costa County Jail.