Copper theives are stung hard!

[jraef]

Just released on the news today, police busted a copper theft ring that had 14 tons of stolen wire and other electrical materials. Also nabbed were guns, stolen cars and even a guy trying to sell them cell-phone activated bombs that were demonstrated by hiding one in a toy!

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=5909732

http://cbs13.com/local/cell.phone.copper.2.636555.html

 

[itsmoked]

Salinas; last weekend we had thousands of dollars of cables stolen by copper thieving scumbags. They cut a walk thru hole thru our ribbon wire topped chain link fence.

Second time in two months.

We are now in panic mode as they haven't discovered the $16k of cables strung under the cars.

We need a law because the recyclers are all complicit in these thefts. Finger prints and a photo should be required for anyone bringing in scrap.

I guess it will take these thieves killing a lot of people with a theft before anyone acts.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[LionelHutz]

Too bad that will do about as much good stopping theft as the big drug busts they are so proud of announcing stops dealing.

Near here there were a few houses deemed unsafe and left empty because their backyards began sliding into the river. One house was broken into multiple times and one break-in was to steal all the copper.

 

[Zogzog]

A guy I work with is building a new house and just had the wires stolen out of the wall the other night, and his neighbor is a cop and was home.

 

[Mike2468]

At new homes near us, the model homes all have many internal security cameras wired as web cams. They have caught guys with trucks who are stealing everything -- Sub Zero Fridge, kitchen electronics, everything. Real shame. Everyone loses due to these thieves.

 

[jraef]

For the past month, I have been dealing with consequences of this issue with the agricultural community in central California with a new twist. They are attacking NEMA size 4, 5 and 6 Autotransformer starters at well pumps in remote fields, probably because they figured out that they have lots of big extra cables inside. But they apparently don't have tools like cable cutters, so they are taking rocks and smashing the contactors to bits in order to release the cable lugs. Ironically, they don't seem to know that the contactors contain silver, but that becomes somewhat irrelevant to the farmers because the contactors are destroyed anyway. In one case, one of them destroyed the contactors and wiring (including control wiring), then came back a few days later (probably with an engine hoist) and stole the 400HP autotransformer itself too!

Then for the motor leads on submersibles, they connect a chain to the ends with the lugs attached and attach it to their trailer hitch, then drive off, snapping the cables underground. This makes it difficult to extract the pumps afterwards! many of them are forced to abandon the wells and dig new ones, new pumps, new controls etc. The economic damage to farmers is appalling, which will ultimately be reflected in our food prices.

And as to the issue of them getting electrocuted, the new twist to that now is that they were just calling up the utility and request a disconnect! New rules were put in place to stop that, but that too will have an economic impact by making it more difficult now for service people to do emergency repairs.

Side note to this issue; last year in Fresno an abandoned well was going to be put back in service because of the drought, but had problems. So they did a camera inspection and found human bones at the bottom. Probably a copper thief caught by the farmer...

 

[itsmoked]

Think about the sting mentioned by jraef in the OP.

The cops told a scrap yard to let everyone know they were going to take ill gotten scrap. This fuels thieving. Then the cops decided they would run the operation until 24 tons of ill-gotten copper came in.

They then run this and nab a bunch of thieves but dang!! This means that 24 tons of victimized people and companies had to essentially fund this. People who might not have had anything stolen otherwise.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[jraef]

I thought about that too. If the thieves had no place to sell it, would they have damaged equipment to take more copper? Or would they have moved on to something more readily movable? It's not like you can just return the copper to the rightful owner like you can with a car or even guns, the process of stealing it makes the damage worse than the value of what was stolen.

Still, it satisfies our need for revenge...

 

[IRstuff]

You don't create a sting unless it's already a problem. It's very likely that same scrap yard was already getting a lot of queries about unloading stolen copper.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[NickE]

I had some 12/6 SOOW (speaker wire) stolen, found out that the thief was able to go directly to the local Crack House and trade directly with the drug dealer.

Talk about market forces huh!

(This is in Detroit MI)

 

[Zogzog]

Thats why I just moved out of Detroit! How many pounds of copper for an 8 ball I wonder?

 

[IRstuff]

And how do you even know what an 8 ball is?

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Zogzog]

Like I said, I lived in Detroit, common knowledge there if you watch the news.