Policing scrap industry for stolen autos

Scrap-industry officials stress that they view the cars only in terms of raw tonnage. It is not their job, they say, to police whether an auto hulk is the remains of a stolen car or not. ``We don't think we are at the root of the [auto theft] problem,'' says John Spillane, a scrap-industry lobbyist on Beacon Hill. ``The problem is with someone else, not with our industry.''

Dennis Curran, an ex-aide to former Governor King and a member of a recent Justice Department advisory panel on auto theft, does not agree. ``Once you shut off the disposal site, then you create all kinds of problems for the car thieves. They have hot evidence on their hands, and they don't know what to do with it.''

``You have to chip away at all sides of it,'' says Detective Kelley. The veteran auto-theft detective says that if the scrap processors were licensed by the state, an official could be posted at each shredder to find out who shows up with stolen cars. ``It is a lot of work in one respect, but on the other hand it would pay for itself,'' Kelley says, adding, ``That would knock the thief out of the box.''

Others are afraid that it might knock the scrap industry out of the box at the same time.

``It is going to make it that much more difficult to recycle cars, . . .'' says Herschel Cutler, executive director of the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel in Washington. ``Nobody steals a car for its scrap value,'' he says.

Spillane, who successfully fought the scrap licensing measure in the Massachusetts legislature in the early 1980s, says, ``In the real world, licensing scrap-metal processors is just not productive.'' He adds, ``The industry is capital intensive, and banks don't like to do business with people who depend on a license.''

``If you are running a piece of machinery and somebody [from the state Registry] is standing there and says shut it down, that is a loss of productivity,'' says a scrap processor who asked not to be named. ``It hinders your business miserably.''

Bill Boutwell of Aberjona Auto Parts in Woburn, Mass., offers a different view. ``If you were to post Registry or State Police officials at the locations of the shredders, you would see that the `gypsies' [independent, nonlicensed scrap dealers who sometimes take stolen cars to the shredders] would shift automatically to another area,'' he says.

Scrap-industry officials say an estimated 200,000 motorists are driving in the state with expired registrations. They note that the Registry of Motor Vehicles doesn't have the available manpower to police that problem adequately. How, they ask, can Registry officials be expected to take on yet another responsibility, when they apparently can't do the job as it now exists?

Registry officials reply that more staff would be required.

``We are not the problem,'' says Cutler of the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel. ``The problem is the [stolen] auto parts. And until you deal with that, you are not going to solve the problem.'' Scrap-industry officials stress that they do not process stolen vehicles. ``Nobody in this business is going to run the risk of buying questionable merchandise,'' Cutler says.

Spillane adds, ``Every hulk that comes in to us comes in from a registered truck or a registered dealer so we are not dealing with stolen property.'' He says, ``There is no way to get stolen goods to us directly.''

But industry sources say that scrap processors do not require any documentation for cars that have already been crushed in a special machine that flattens cars to about a foot high. Crushed cars are fed directly into the shredder, no questions asked, says Herbert Burr of the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

It is only in the case of cars that have not been crushed that scrap processors require proof of ownership such as a copy of the title and registration prior to shredding, according to industry sources.

Burr says that while there are only five shredders in Massachusetts, there are roughly 50 so-called crushers, including several portable crushers that can be moved virtually anywhere. The operations of the crushers -- like those of the shredders -- are not regularly monitored by the state. Illinois and New York require operators of auto shredders to keep detailed records. Burr suggests that both shredding and crushing operations should be monitored by the state, in part by requiring operating licenses. But he adds that extra manpower would be needed to police such operations adequately.

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