Police officer in Loveland (crime prevention dude) I spoke with as a follow up also told me it seems more organized than years past. Adding to that, a family member in law enforcement(now working up in the midwest), said they have broken up several groups this year but that its rare to lock up anything more than a few low level habitual offenders who could care less about another misdemeanor charge or a few weeks in jail.
I guess they fractionalize the work. Pay a guy to go video cars and send the video to a burner. Person with burner maps what he wants to hit and goes and steals a few cats before dropping them somewhere (bed of a truck, trailer, etc.). They leave that location alone for awhile, before the next person is sent to just grab the vehicle or trailer deliver it somewhere. Then they are brought to a legitimate/illegitimate recycler/processor who breaks them down to get the internals before exporting; which to me seems like the best place to catch this stuff?
Supposedly it's tough to pin felonies on it because the guy breaking them down, the guy driving the cats, the guy videoing cars, etc. can plead some level of ignorance to their involvement. The person who can catch bigger charges are the actual cat cutters but its still not like they are stealing a car, breaking into someone's home, etc.
This is probably nothing new, and isn't really that organized I suppose; but it does seem a lot harder to get to the bottom of than a guy cutting cats off a few cars and showing up at a recycler for cash the next day with no proof they own the parts they are holding.
