Police reveal modus operandi of Lake Oswego catalytic converter theft ring

Brennan Doyle, who was arrested in 2022 and accused of leading a $20 million catalytic converter thieving ring from his Lake Oswego home, told police he tried to run his business “as legally as possible.”

Was he serious enough? That is something a jury will decide. His trial for organized crime is scheduled for October.

There, prosecutors will try to prove that Doyle knew his goods were being stolen. To this end, they have convinced several of Doyle’s alleged accomplices, including his ex-girlfriend, to testify. They are also sitting on a mountain of evidence collected during months of wiretapping and surveillance (“From Portland to Jersey,” WW11 November 2022).

Now, much of that evidence is public. That’s because prosecutors are trying to link Doyle’s case to that of one of his alleged co-conspirators, Tanner Hellbusch, who is accused of doing the dirty work of stealing the devices from under Portland cars (and, on other occasions, peddling the catalytic converters that others had stolen).

To consolidate the cases, prosecutors must convince a judge that the two men’s crimes are similar. To support their argument, they filed a police report in Washington County District Court on June 18, written by the lead investigator in the case, Patrick McNair of the Beaverton Police Department.

The 50-page report has been available for some time: It’s from April of last year. It documents proof that Doyle knew the parts Hellbusch sold him were stolen. We’ve turned the pages to bring you the highlights.

The ring profited from people desperate for cash to finance their fentanyl addiction.

Beaverton police tapped Hellbusch’s phone and overheard a conversation between him and another man, Jessie Hillard, in June 2022. (Hillard was one of a dozen people charged in the ring and pleaded guilty last year.)

During the conversation, the two men discuss a deal to buy a catalytic converter from a Dodge pickup truck, worth at least $1,000 because of the precious metals it contains. Hillard says the seller is desperate: “You know how he is, sad as hell, man,” referring to counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl that were widely available on Portland streets at the time.

According to the police report, Hellbusch told Hilliard to make a low offer to the seller, and Hillard eventually bought it for $400. Hellbusch mostly dealt in cash, but sometimes paid Hillard back through CashApp, with the payments disguised as mundane transactions, such as “riding lawn mowers.”

Doyle exchanged tips with another suspected catalyst boss.

Police also tapped Doyle’s phone. The following month, in July 2022, they recorded a conversation between Doyle and a man they believe to be Cedrus King, who was arrested shortly after Doyle and charged with running his own criminal organization in Bend and peddling stolen catalytic converters.

The two talked about Hellbusch, who had recently been caught by the police with a load of catalytic converters in his car.

And they considered how to keep the police at bay. “The discussions were not about actually preventing stolen catalytic converters from entering their store, but rather how to avoid liability for purchasing stolen catalytic converters,” Detective McNair wrote.

One of these strategies: fake papers. Hellbusch had a friend who worked at a scrap yard and who he hoped could construct a paper trail, as the police concluded based on text messages from an accomplice’s phone.

Doyle took precautions as police approached.

Police had been monitoring Doyle’s store in Aurora, where his employees were packing shipments. After Hellbusch was stopped by police again in March 2022, Doyle told one of those employees, a high school friend named Benjamin Jamison, that he was looking for a new store and planned to close the operation. (Jamison was also charged and has since pleaded guilty.)

Hellbusch became a liability. “I may have to cut ties with him,” Doyle explained. “Or find a new buyer for him.”

While police in Oregon were tracking down Doyle and King, federal law enforcement moved in on the major buyers of catalytic converters on the East Coast: Adam and Matt Sharkey, two brothers from Long Island, NY.

The business was a family affair. In May 2022, her father was stopped in Oklahoma with three pallets of catalytic converters – and $1.3 million in cash.

Matt Sharkey texted Doyle to warn him, “We’ve had some really bad circumstances over the last two days and we can’t travel with cash anymore.” That text, which Doyle forwarded to Jamison, is now included in McNair’s report.

This also applies to Doyle’s comment: “Won’t be good,” he wrote.