A Rhode Island man pleaded guilty this week to failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income that he received from selling stolen catalytic converters to a local scrap yard.
U.S. Attorney Charles C. Calenda reported that Daniel Rivera pleaded guilty to two counts of filing false tax returns in U.S. District Court in Providence. Rivera is scheduled to be sentenced on June.
Charging documents reflect that from at least January 2021 until November 2022, Rivera and others searched neighborhoods and parking lots in Rhode Island and Massachusetts looking for unoccupied vehicles from which they could steal catalytic converters. Many of the stolen catalytic converters were sold to a Providence company that recycles them. Depending on the model and type of precious metal component, the average scrap price for catalytic converters ranged from $300 to $1,500…