Prosecutors in Connecticut announced sentencing of two men involved in catalytic converter theft and trafficking.
Alexander Kolitsas, 31, of Wolcott, was sentenced in Hartford to 60 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, for operating a catalytic converter theft and trafficking ring. He was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine, according to Marc H. Silverman, acting U.S Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Kolitsas owned and operated Downpipe Depot & Recycling, which had a warehouse on Park Avenue in East Hartford. From approximately January 2021 to June 2022, Kolitsas used Downpipe Depot to purchase stolen catalytic converters from a network of thieves. Kolitsas instructed his suppliers on the types of converters that would obtain the most profit upon resale, and he would often meet with them and transact business at his home late at night or behind a family member’s restaurant in Middlebury after hours.
Prosecutors said records seized from Downpipe Depot revealed that many of Kolitsas’s suppliers were selling thousands to tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen converters to Kolitsas each week.
Kolitsas was arrested on August 24, 2022. On October 7, 2024, he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of promotional money laundering.
Starting in January 2022, Kolitsas maintained electronic invoices reflecting the purchase of stolen catalytic converters from Mervin Figueroa and other suppliers. In several of the invoices, Kolitsas permitted his suppliers to use fictitious names or business names in order to create the appearance of proper recordkeeping while obscuring from his records the true source of the stolen converters. The invoices show that between approximately January 26 and May 31, 2022, Kolitsas and Downpipe Depot paid paid more than $3.3 million to purchase converters from his suppliers.
U.S. Attorney Silverman also announced that Mervin Figueroa, 27, of New Haven, was sentenced in Hartford to 14 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for offenses related to his participation in a stolen catalytic converter trafficking ring.
According to prosecutors, the invoices reflect that Downpipe Depot paid Figueroa $169,840 for catalytic converters, including converters that were stolen in two separate incidents from vehicles at U-Haul Moving and Storage in Naugatuck. In messages between Kolitsas and Figueroa, Kolitsas told Figueroa that he needed to remove anti-theft tags that U-Haul had placed on the converters before Kolitsas would take them. The investigation revealed that Figueroa also stole converters from school buses.
Figueroa was arrested on November 15, 2023. On October 29, 2024, he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of interstate transportation of stolen property.
Source: U.S Attorney for the District of Connecticut
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