A brave car owner told of his shock yesterday after thieves threatened him with an iron bar.
The man confronted the pair as they tried to remove his vehicle’s catalytic converter in broad daylight. The horror incident happened on Wednesday afternoon outside the man’s home in a West Dublin suburb while he was working from home.
CCTV footage shows a silver car pulling up outside the man’s property just before 2pm. Two masked men run on to the driveway and jack up the front passenger side of his Toyota Prius.
Read more: Armed thieves caught stealing catalytic converter from car in north Dublin
Seconds later the video shows one of the masked men, wearing a grey tracksuit and baseball cap, swinging the iron bar from the jack at the car owner who has emerged from his house. The second man is seen underneath the car allegedly trying to remove the car’s catalytic converter.
The whole ordeal lasted around 10 minutes before the brazen thieves appeared to get flustered and left empty-handed. The car owner told us yesterday: “It was something like out of Grand Theft Auto. I looked out the window and saw them come into the driveway and start jacking my car up.
“I went downstairs and out the front door and I asked them what are you doing, you are on three cameras. I told them the part they want is probably only worth a few hundred euro in scrap – but it will cost me thousands to repair.
“I tried to reason with them but that wasn’t working so I went inside to call the gardai and left the front door open which I think flustered them. They took their jack and ran back to their car and off they went.”
The owner said gardai arrived at his house within 15 minutes. He added: “They said to me this is something else, these thieves are getting too big for their boots now trying to attack me.”
The car they used was located nearby with the tools they used still in the vehicle. Gardai have confirmed “investigations are ongoing” into a robbery incident which occurred in Clonsilla, Dublin 15, at around 2pm on Wednesday.
“Investigations are ongoing. There have been no arrests at this time,” An Garda Siochana confirmed in a statement to this paper.
The theft of catalytic converters was one of the biggest earners for thieving mobs throughout Ireland in 2020 when around 1,400 overall such events were reported to gardai - with a combined value of around €1.6m. The catalytic converter, also known as a Cat, is the emission control device which is attached to the exhaust on the under body of a vehicle.
The converters can contain up to seven grams of these metals. Rhodium costs about €450 per gram, palladium is worth about €65 for the same amount while platinum is about €30 per gram.
In the past two years, hybrids have been vehicles of choice for thieves, with the Toyota Prius, Auris and Yaris, Honda Jazz and Lexus RX the most sought after.
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