Federal prosecutors have added to the charges against a local gang of thieves believed to have collected $10 million or more from the sale of catalytic converters stolen from cars across New England.
A new indictment made public Wednesday and other court filings show both the enormous profit and cash volume connected to the thefts, which have spiked in recent months. The converters, required on automobiles as pollution control devices, are packed with increasingly valuable precious metals and easily chopped from cars by thieves carrying portable electric saws.
CT man who made $540K selling stolen catalytic converters pleads guilty to role in trafficking ring
Alexander Kolitsas, the alleged ringleader who operated out of locations in East Hartford and Wolcott, was tied into a national theft network that was spending tens of millions of dollars buying and selling converters. He was selling converters stolen across New England, from New Hampshire to southwest Connecticut, according to federal authorities and court records.
Kolitsas was shelling out as much as $20,000 on an almost daily basis in 2021 and ‘22 to each of the have dozen or so men charged with delivering converters to him at his home in Wolcott, his father’s restaurant in Middlebury and at his business, Downpipe Depot & Recycling in East Hartford.
Invoices seized from Kolitsas show that in the first five months of 2022 alone he paid more than $3.3 million for stolen converters from men who have been charged with him, according to the new indictment. But the indictment suggests the actual payouts, often in cash, were far more extensive.
Kolitsas and a partner charged in the case, Bryant Bermudez of East Hartford, were receiving millions of dollars by selling the converters they collected to brothers Andrew and Alan Pawelsky, who owned automotive businesses on Long Island, and to DG Auto in New Jersey, according to the indictment.
Banking and other records taken from Kolitsas show that he collected $2.3 million in wire payments from DG Auto over an 18-month period and another $1.3 million from the Pawelsky brothers over the same period.
Prosecution filings in court assert that the $1.3 million represents “only a small fraction of the total payments from the Pawlesky brothers during that time period, which were predominantly in cash.”
“During an interview with (law enforcement), Andrew Pawlesky estimated that he paid Kolitsas approximately $10 million in cash for catalytic converters, including converters that he could tell had been stolen,” the filings say.
In a related case, federal law enforcement has charged that the operators of DG Auto in New Jersey paid $38 million to a group in California for catalytic converters stolen there.
It is a sharp increase in the value of the rare metals essential to catalytic converters that has made them such a hot commodity for thieves, federal agents said.
The converters use metals such as platinum, palladium and rhodium – some of which now exceed gold in price – to create a catalyzing chemical reaction that reduces harmful pollutants and gases in the exhaust of automobile engines.
The black-market price for catalytic converters can be above $1,000 each, depending on the type of vehicle and what state it is from; authorities said Kolitsas advised his thieves to look for Hondas and Acuras, according to the indictment. The converters can be stolen in less than a minute.
When arresting Kolitsas and others, agents seized three pistols, two rifles and $55,000 in cash. Prosecutors also are moving in court to seize a Ford van, a Chevrolet truck, a three-wheeled roadster, a Toyota and a bank account containing $91,000.
