Copper's a gold mine for brash thieves

Copper's a gold mine for brash thieves
Metal's soaring price unleashes a global crime wave that hits home in
the Central Valley.
By Todd Milbourn - Bee Staff Writer

Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, August 13, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/322180.html

The world's thieves are pinching more than pennies these days.

They're ripping up railways in Italy, tearing out transformers in Cape
Town and stripping irrigation pumps from Reno to Redding -- all for
scraps of shiny, lucrative copper.

A humble conductor that's served humankind since the Stone Age, copper
is fetching record prices on the global commodities markets, thanks to
growing demand from industrializing countries, notably China and
India. The price has risen so much that the U.S. Mint says it now
costs about 1 1/2 cents to produce a single copper-plated penny.

Copper has many applications. Malleable and ductile, it's a good
conductor of heat and electricity and is used in products from wire
and piping to vacuum tubes and integrated circuits, as well as
ceramics and coins. Its many compounds are used in medicine and
agriculture and other fields, enhancing its value in a rapidly
developing world.

Such metal economics have turned vast farms and construction sites of
the Central Valley into gold mines for copper crooks who fence the
stolen metal for quick cash.

Now law enforcement is striking back.

Sacramento, Placer, Sutter and Yuba counties formed a task force last
month to combat metal theft and other kinds of rural wrongdoing. They
are stepping up late-night rounds, sharing detectives and investing in
new security equipment.

Sutter County, for instance, recently approved $20,000 for a night-
vision camera as well as a tracking device that can be attached to
metal stockpiles used as bait.

"These crimes are devastating farmers," said J. Paul Parker, Sutter
County's undersheriff. "The bad thing isn't how much they steal, it's
the damage they cause stealing it. They'll tear apart a water pump in
the fields for maybe 20 pounds of copper."

California cities and counties are taking a tougher line on metal
theft after the defeat last month of a state bill that would have
restricted the selling of scrap.

The legislation, proposed by Assemblyman Tom Berryhill, Republican of
Modesto, would have forced scrap sellers to wait three days before
getting paid. It was rejected by a Senate panel after intense lobbying
by the scrap metal industry. Berryhill is now urging local governments
to act.

Commodity crime is hardly new.

Cases of gasoline siphoning routinely rise when prices go up. Last
year, the soaring cost of aluminum led to a spike in bleacher thefts.
"Mercury was big a few years back," Parker noted.

But investigators say the current wave of metal theft is as bad as
anything they've seen.

"It's just exponentially getting worse," said Bill Yoshimoto, director
of a San Joaquin Valley rural crime investigation unit, the
Agricultural Crime Technology Information and Operations Network. "If
you're someone supporting a drug habit, and you want something easy to
steal and easy to fence, metal's the way to go."

Metal thefts cost San Joaquin farmers, companies and homeowners more
than $50 million in 2006, up from $10 million in 2004, according to
Yoshimoto's unit, which has plans to expand into the Sacramento
Valley.

A typical California copper heist happens at night. Some thieves
simply grab all the loose wire and electrical cords they can find.
Others hook up wires to a truck bumper, yanking out hundreds of feet
of underground wire with the force of an engine.

In the case of the Natomas Central Mutual Water Company, prowlers
broke into an irrigation pump in July and stripped 300 feet of copper
wire. The crime left a half-dozen rice farmers without water for 12
hours.

"We called the sheriff up here in Sutter County and they were like,
'Oh yeah, about five places got hit last night,' " said Fred Schantz,
the company's assistant general manager. "It was a pretty professional
job."

Yoshimoto said thieves sell stolen copper to recyclers at the going
rate, about $3.50 a pound. It was $1 a pound in 2004. A good portion
of that scrap makes its way to the ports of Long Beach and Oakland,
where it is shipped to China, the world's largest copper importer.

Recyclers are required to note a seller's driver's license and ask
where the metal came from. But unscrupulous business owners, eager for
the scrap, simply look the other way, Yoshimoto said.

Brian Tran, general manager of Sunshine Steel in Sacramento, said the
rap on recyclers is unfair.

"We are checking IDs and license plates and what kind of car they are
driving," Tran said. "If they bring a lot, we are asking who they are
working for. What else should we do?"

While many crooks make money stealing metal, others die trying. The
Associated Press reported that about two dozen people have died in the
past year trying to steal copper in the United States, including a 22-
year-old Ohio man who was electrocuted in July trying to down a phone
line.

Metal theft has gone global. News accounts describe sophisticated
syndicates routing contraband metal into China's fast-growing economy,
which needs even more metals like copper to build roads and stadiums
for next year's Olympics.

The mayor of Cape Town, South Africa, announced in June that the
plundering of the city's phone cables and power lines threatened to
bring its tourist economy "to its knees." In Italy, thieves snatched
hundreds of pounds of copper wire from railroad tracks, delaying
trains and stranding passengers for hours.

In Roseville, electrician Troy Smith said he's losing patience. He
paced the grounds of a half-built Scandinavian Designs furniture
store, pointing out all the spots were crooks have entered on late-
night metal hunts.

A single heist of copper wire last year set the company back $10,000.

"The foreman shows up every day with his fingers crossed," he said.

.

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