Houston-When you look under the truck, this is not what you want to see: your catalytic converter appears to be hung on a wire.

"He cut off both sides. But there is a bracket and it takes a little work to take it out, so he didn't take it out. It's still there," Shad Bronstein said.

He is lucky. Before they finished their work, he frightened the thief.

Hank Lewis had no such luck.

"I started to look up, and I thought,'What should be between the muffler and other things, this pipe?'" he said.

The blank area Lewis noticed was where the thief cut off the catalytic converter. At noon, his car was parked in a busy parking lot outside the gym.

"In broad daylight. People come in and out. There are Starbucks, Taco Bell and Smoothie King across the parking lot of the gym," Lewis said. "So it's shocking to say the least."

Watch: Thief crawling under a truck parked in Houston

For the Houston police, who was responsible for catching thieves, it was not surprising that Lewis was shocked.

"They do this all day. Every parking lot. At school. At mall. At gas station. At Starbucks," the sergeant said. Jesse Fett. "They are everywhere."

The best defense is to park your car in the garage. Not everyone has it, so what?

Sergeant Fite recommends spraying the entire catalytic converter end-to-end with bright, high-temperature paint.

"If they plan to sell it, they will have to scrape off all the paint," he explained.

This is the cheapest option. Paint will cost you from $6 to $10.

If you can spend a few hundred dollars, consider a cage that must be welded and more difficult to remove.

"That will take more time. Make more noise. It will only push them to the next victim," Fett said.

You can help the police catch the crook by etching your VIN on the converter. If it appears in a scrapyard, they will be able to trace it back to you.

"Take a carving tool and actually carve it," the sergeant said. Tracy Hicks. "It lets us go,'Let's check this number here.'"

HPD is also working with city leaders and state legislators to reduce the difficulty of selling catalytic converters. For example, the city recently passed new rules requiring sellers to provide the year, brand, model, and VIN for each catalytic converter they bring. 

Without documents, without sales, officials hope that the incentive to go out and try again will decrease.

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