CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland towing company, along with its owner and several employees, was indicted on criminal conspiracy charges Wednesday, accused of a long-running scheme to steal catalytic converters from cars and sell them to recycling companies.

Starting in 2012, Lawson Towing and Auto Wrecking began accepting stolen catalytic converters, according to the indictment handed up by a grand jury.

The company, along with owner Edward Lawson and others, now face felony charges including engaging in a corrupt pattern of activity, conspiracy, money laundering, receiving stolen property and tampering with records.

Undercover police officers began doing business with Edward Lawson in 2012, the indictment says. Police searched the scrapyard in October 2013 in connection with several stolen cars that had been scrapped, according to the indictment.

Eddie Lawson, whom informants called "Sleezie E.", is charged with coordinating the thefts of the catalytic converters, according to the indictment, and was seen parked at the scene of multiple reported catalytic converter thefts in parking lots across Northeast Ohio between 2012 and 2016.

Eddie Lawson would then deliver the stolen converters to his cousin, Edward M. Lawson, who owned Lawson Towing and Auto Wrecking and had a scrap metal dealer license that qualified him under Ohio law to sell catalytic converters to recycling companies.

Edward M. Lawson, who went by the nickname "Wink," told undercover Cleveland police officers that he would pay money for stolen catalytic converters and stolen cars.

The converters, which contain valuable metals such as platinum and palladium, fetched Edward Lawson between $100 and $400 a piece from local recycling plants including New Western Reserve Recycling and Ferrous Processing and Trading, according to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty's office.

When purchased new, the converters cost up to $4,000.

Eddie Lawson stole converters at least 24 times, prosecutors say, and collected money for them from his cousin's scrapping business.

The indictment also names six co-conspirators, Marcellar Grayer, 29, Randy Harris, 32, Gary Thompson Jr., 34, James Mingo, 32, Melvin King, 39, and Deshawn Darryl Douglas, 20, each of whom are charged with playing a role in stealing or delivering catalytic converters to Edward M. Lawson.

On several occasions, Eddie Lawson and Douglas were arrested together with stolen catalytic converters.

Harris worked at Lawson Towing and Auto Wrecking. On Dec. 16 he was pulled over on I-71 in a car along with Grayer, a.k.a. Buster, and King. The trio had 28 stolen catalytic converters in the car, prosecutors say, and King told police officers that he was Edward M. Lawson.

A seventh defendant named in the indictment, 34-year-old Euclid resident Angela Wilkes, reported her car stolen to the Akron Police Department three weeks after it had been crushed in Lawson's scrap yard, prosecutors say.

Lawson and his six co-defendants are scheduled for arraignment July 6 in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. The publicly listed phone number for Lawson's Towing and Auto Wrecking was not accepting phone calls Thursday. The company's website was also inoperable.