To Catch a Thief

Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Beck Ireland, Staff Writer

Methods to prevent and prosecute copper theft

At 2:43 a.m. on Nov. 3, 2007, a uniformed police officer noticed a stretch of darkened streetlights on his assigned patrol in east Mesa, Ariz. Knowing there had been previous streetlight wire thefts in the area in the last few months, the officer investigated further and located a suspicious vehicle, along with three suspects and a large quantity of copper wire in close proximity to the vehicle. The suspects were arrested and booked on suspicion of aggravated criminal damage and felony theft. In this incident, the thieves were responsible for taking approximately $29,000 worth of copper wire and causing $24,000 worth of damage.

Electrical substations have been a prime target for copper thieves.

For the last five years, Mesa has been battling an escalating copper theft epidemic. In fact, during its last fiscal year — July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008 — there were copper thefts at 113 different locations, totaling 132,000 linear feet of wire. “That is our fourth fiscal year of it being a problem — and our largest,” says Michael Mason, field operations streetlights foreman for the City of Mesa Streetlights Department. “It's been growing year by year.”

Unfortunately, the rise in copper theft isn't confined to Mesa. Throughout the country, states, municipalities, and private companies have been contending with losses associated with copper theft. In 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy called copper theft a $1-billion problem that was getting worse.

Copper mountain

Although copper in almost any application is vulnerable to theft, utility substations report the majority of incidents, mostly involving copper grounding wire and even transformers lately. In September, for example, Detroit Edison had 4,000 feet of wire stolen from one location.

New construction on unoccupied housing developments is also a prime target for copper theft activity. Many in the industry share similar horror stories. “People are backing up to a house, putting a chain around the service from their truck and just driving,” says Keith Jentoft, president of White Bear Lake, Minn.-based RSI Video Technologies. “All the wire just goes ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop’ out of the wall until it all comes out.”

One of the worst incidents Jentoft has heard of in the residential arena is a large home that was stripped of all its wire. Then a forge was made in the basement to melt off the insulation. “Besides having holes cut in all the boards and walls, there was a sludgy smoke over the entire house and a big hole in the concrete slab downstairs,” he says. “It cost the guy tens of thousands of dollars to fix.”

Foreclosure properties are also being exploited by copper thieves. In March, police in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, broke up an organized copper-theft ring that used foreclosure lists to pinpoint targets. Ironically, the burglars based what houses to hit on information provided by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office. When police arrested two Cleveland men, they were carrying road maps, tools, and eight pages of handwritten sheriff's foreclosure listings. Inside the suspects' van was 200 pounds of copper.

New construction sites are extremely vulnerable to acts of theft.

Campus construction sites have also been raided. Three separate incidents were reported on the campus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., on April 23, and another one April 30, according to The Michigan Daily. In all, 14 thefts have been reported on campus since last May, costing companies working on campus about $13,000.

Railroads, another likely target, have begun burying signaling wire or using fiber-optic cable instead of copper, according to a spokesperson for Union Pacific Railroad, Chicago, which lost 8,800 feet of signaling wire that contained copper in a 2006 heist.