Winnipeg mayoral candidate's campaign rolls to a stop after catalytic converters pinched from RV
Bartley Kives · CBC News ·
Rana Bokhari’s mobile campaign office immobilized after Sunday-night theft
A Winnipeg mayoral candidate is talking about crime this week — but not as the basis of any new policies or promises.
Rana Bokhari filed a police report on Monday after catalytic converters were removed from the motorhome she uses as a mobile campaign office.
The vehicle was parked outside Bokhari’s residence in Peguis, a newer neighbourhood in Transcona. Bokhari said the campaign volunteer who drives the recreational vehicle discovered the theft on Monday morning.
“When our volunteer came to drive it out, it was doing something off,” she said. “He went to look under the RV and then he saw that the converters were sawed off.”
Catalytic converter theft is common. The devices, which convert pollutants in exhaust into less toxic substances, contain valuable precious metals.
Manitoba Public Insurance says thefts of these devices more than quadrupled between 2020 and 2021, rising from just over 400 in 2020 to more than 2,200 in 2021. During the first six months of 2022, 1,355 catalytic converters were reported stolen, said Kristy Rydz, a spokesperson for the Crown corporation.
The scale of the thefts led the Winnipeg Police Service to investigate the purchase of stolen converters by a Springfield, Man., scrap dealer.
