Copper’s value spurs costly theft cases

Earlier this month, a crime victim in western Michigan placed a value of nearly $200,000 on copper wire chops that were stolen. Several weeks later, a victim in St. Louis says $300,000 in the form of three copper cable spools went missing.

Both theft cases triggered notices on the ScrapTheftAlert.com system set up by the Washington-based Recycled Materials Association (ReMA).

In the most recent case in St. Louis, scrap buyers in that area were advised to be on the lookout for three spools (or cable unwound from those spools). Some of the cable is described as 15 kilovolt-grade copper coated in a 220 mils no-lead ethylene propylene rubber (EPR) jacket while some is coated in a black polyvinyl chloride (PVC) jacket.

Although the alert was issued May 30, the notification indicates the theft occurred May 11 from a site that is not identified.

The Michigan incident, which involved prepared copper chops taken from a facility in Grandville, Michigan, led to the theft of recycled metal valued at $198,000. That theft took place May 9, with the alert being sent out a few days later.

The soaring value of copper this spring has led to activity on the ScrapTheftAlert system that may strike some as reminiscent of the mid- and late 2000s, when awareness of the issue escalated because of a frequently reported on rise in metals theft as a crime.

The two high-value copper thefts were not the only alerts sent out this May. Two others, one in Maryland and the other in Ohio, also involved the theft of red metals.

In Rockville, Maryland, the victim of a May 9 crime estimates the baled copper and brass pipe stolen carries a value of $190,000, nearly equaling the loss in Michigan. The McDonald, Ohio, theft involved an estimated $60,000 worth of copper busbar (electronic conductor material) also stolen May 9.

At least two of the thefts involved processed material, meaning in at least half the cases the victims likely were metals recycling companies.

In the 2000s, when nonferrous theft was equally rampant, many jurisdictions responded with new laws designed to increase compliance measures for recyclers, who in many places were vilified as the cause of the problem.

The ScrapTheftAlert system itself came about the following decade as part of the recycling industry’s response and was set up in cooperation with law enforcement agencies.

Complete listings of incidents reported to the ScrapTheftAlert organization can be found here.