SEATTLE — Tow truck driver Edgar Plata spent most of a recent Monday as he often does these days, picking up the pieces after a spree of catalytic converter thefts.
By the time he pulled up to my North Seattle home to tow my newly converter-less Honda, Plata, who works for Viking Towing, had already hauled off two vehicles with similarly violated exhaust systems.
"It's out of control," says Plata, 44, of the plague of thefts that now afflicts every community in the Seattle area — a plague that, in his view, can only get worse, given its very attractive economics.
