For the past 10 days or so, Michelle Hyasat has been keeping up an early morning vigil, slowly cruising the 1800 block of South Arlington Street before sunrise, keeping an eye out for trouble.

Hyasat is on the hunt for a band of brazen thieves who hit her used car dealership and several others in late December, stealing catalytic converters from the underside of cars and trucks.

''They cut the converters off of 30 of our cars,'' Hyasat said Friday morning as she sat in the squat yellow cinder-block office of HK Motors, a used car lot she owns with her husband and business partner, Kamal Hyasat.

Michelle Hyasat said her dealership and several others along South Arlington have been targeted by thieves seeking to convert the auto emissions devices found on vehicle undercarriages into fast cash.

Hyasat said ''five guys in a white cargo van'' hit her lot on Dec. 26 and again just a few days later.

''We caught them on videotape but it wasn't clear enough to identify anyone or the van's license plate,'' Hyasat said.

Both times, the thieves hit between 6 and 8:30 a.m —''just before we opened at 9,'' she said.

''It didn't take them long. All it took was two quick straight cuts (on each vehicle), probably less than a minute,'' Hyasat said. She said Akron police told her the culprits used an electric reciprocating saw to cut away the catalytic converters.

It was the same method that was used to rip off the pollution control devices from nine cars at the Hyasats' Benz Car & Motor used car lot on Brittain Road on Christmas Eve and from two pickup trucks parked at a sign business on East Tallmadge Avenue on Dec. 26.

The losses are part of a rash of catalytic converters thefts that have been reported by people and business throughout Northeast Ohio since last spring.

Akron police detective Lt. Brian Oldaker said catalytic converters are being swiped for the metal — platinum, palladium and rhodium. Each converter can command close to $60 at a scrap yard, which then sells the units to a dealer who extracts the precious metals.

''One person or a group can sweep through an area pretty quickly,'' Oldaker said. He said the theft of catalytic converters falls into the same category as swiping copper pipes, air conditioners and aluminum siding from buildings.

''These guys are taking the stuff to scrap yards — the yards that take walk-ins,'' Oldaker said. He said Akron police have been monitoring city scrap yards, which is why many thieves are taking their trade to yards outside the city limits.

''They are going to Barberton and Canton,'' Oldaker said.

After the first theft at her car lot, Hyasat said, she replaced the catalytic converters on two cars at a cost of more than $200 each.

''When they came back, they took the two replacement converters, too,'' Hyasat said.

She said she and her husband made a business decision to not replace the converters. ''At least not until we get our fence up and probably get a guard dog for the lot . . . The fencing alone is going to cost about $5,000,'' Hyasat said.

Hyasat also has installed additional lighting.

''It's funny they haven't touched the Fords or most of the Japanese cars — mainly the Chevys, GMC, Jeeps,'' Hyasat noted, although she didn't have an explanation for the thieves' choice of vehicles.

''I just hope they catch these guys soon. This is costing us money,'' she said.