Almost 20 New Hanover County catalytic converters stolen this week

NEW HANOVER COUNTY (WWAY) –The New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office says almost 20 catalytic converters have been reported stolen just this week.

Seven were taken early Monday morning from delivery cars at Ed Newsome Hardwood Floors. Monty Newsome, the flooring company’s owner said they didn’t realize anything was amiss until cranking up the cars around 7 am.

After looking at security footage, they realized two men had stolen their converters between 1 and 2 am.

“They came in the middle of the night, they crawled up underneath, sawed them off. Luckily, we have a muffler shop that is working with us. It’s given us a little bit of a discount, so there’s good that comes out of every bad,” said Newsome.

Newsome said it will cost thousands of dollars to fix the seven delivery trucks, with a cost of a little more than $900 per truck.