Rhode Island Man Admits He Failed to Pay Taxes on Catalytic Converter Thefts

www.insurancejournal.com, March 11, 2026 

A Rhode Island man pleaded guilty this week to failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income that he received from selling stolen catalytic converters to a local scrap yard.

U.S. Attorney Charles C. Calenda reported that Daniel Rivera pleaded guilty to two counts of filing false tax returns in U.S. District Court in Providence. Rivera is scheduled to be sentenced on June.

Charging documents reflect that from at least January 2021 until November 2022, Rivera and others searched neighborhoods and parking lots in Rhode Island and Massachusetts looking for unoccupied vehicles from which they could steal catalytic converters. Many of the stolen catalytic converters were sold to a Providence company that recycles them. Depending on the model and type of precious metal component, the average scrap price for catalytic converters ranged from $300 to $1,500.

According to prosecutors, Rivera received approximately $59,890 from stolen catalytic converter sales in 2021 and $224,750 in 2022 but failed to report those amounts on his federal income tax returns. As a result, Rivera’s false filings caused tax losses of approximately $13,426 for the tax year 2021 and $55,930 for the tax year 2022.

This is the latest development in a law enforcement campaign to disrupt catalytic converter theft rings. Continue article