Copper cable thieves suspected in electrocution death of six-month-old foal

A story in The Daily Mail describes the guresome discovery of an electrocuted six-month-old foal following a copper-cable theft near Sittingbourne, Kent, UK. The story's author, Stephanie Darrall, speculates that, after removing a pylon and exposing live wires, thieves may have used the foal to test whether or not electricity was still moving through the wires.

The theft left approximately 3,000 homes without power. The story quotes a resident who lives close to the crime scene as saying, "Most of us believe the people responsible used the foal to test whether the wires were still live, either by putting it on the cable or tempting it over with food."

You can read the Daily Mail story here. Mercifully, it contains no photos of the deceased foal.

In 'Operation Alloy,' police raid scrapyards looking for copper-cable thieves

Police in Stockport, UK, which is near Manchester (map), conducted raids at several scrap-metal yards aiming to catch thieves in the act of cashing in on their crimes. As Bethany English of the Manchester Evening News reports, "Operation Alloy" as it is called, comprised four teams of officers. English reported the officers "were particularly searching for stolen phone cabling and grids" and also were making spot-checks of vans on roads near the scrap yards.

She quoted Sergeant Carl Needham as saying that Operation Alloy will continue through the end of the year at least. In addition to local police officers, the operation includes the efforts of trading-standards and environmental officers, who ensure vehicles are licensed for waste transfer, English explained.

You can read the full report from the Manchester Evening News here.

Below is a video of one of the officers involved, who briefly explains the operation. (If you can understand what he's saying, please let me know. Being from New Hampshire rather than Hampshire, I couldn't even make out his name.)

House explosions blamed on copper-cable theft

According to this report from The Daily Mail, a row of houses in Castleton, West Yorkshire, UK exploded literally seconds after firefighters evacuated the residents. The causes of the string of blasts, firefighters told The Daily Mail, was the theft of copper electrical cable overhead. That theft "affected the earthing of the area's electrical network," the report says.

Astonishing footage of the explosions was captured by a camera mounted to one of the firefighting vehicles. The footage was posted to YouTube.

You can see it below. The video includes multiple explosions and is slightly more than one minute in duration.

Cable-theft attempt kills 16-year-old boy

BBC has reported that a 16-year-old boy was killed in Stourton, UK on Sunday, July 3 while apparently attempting to steal copper cable and components from a power station.

The news agency identified the electrocution victim as Ryan Woolams.

The power station is owned and operated by CE Electric UK. That company told BBC it had dealt with 279 incidents of metal theft within the past year.

CE Electric UK's head of safety Geoff Earl made a plea for would-be thieves to consider the potentially tragic consequences of their actions.

You can read BBC's coverage here.

Talk about an underground crime operation

I'm not sure if the attempted theft of copper cable is more prevalent in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States, or if the U.K. news media pays more attention to the crime than does the news media in this country. Either way, I never go too long without hearing about such a theft, or attempted theft, somewhere in the U.K.

Not long ago we told you about the young man who was nearly electrocuted while trying to steal copper cable from an electrical substation. The permanently scarred culprit spoke remorsefully at his sentencing.

Now I hear about the enterprising 33-year-old from Glasgow who made it look like he was supposed to be working in manholes while he was trying to make off with some of BT's copper cable.

According to reporting by The Courier (which takes you to the heart of Tayside and Fife), Dean Monaghan put on reflective clothing, erected a worker's tent, and put up signs and cones around manhole covers in his attempt to "hide in plain sight" last fall.

The attempt failed. I won't steal the entire story from The Courier. Enter the heart of Tayside and Fife yourself. Read all about it here.

Nearly-electrocuted copper-cable thief speaks remorsefully

Several UK-based news sources have reported on the fate of 22-year-old James Sorby, who was nearly electrocuted by 22,000 volts of electricity while trying to steal copper cable from an electrical substation.

One of those sources, The Daily Mail, ran a story that includes graphic photos of Sorby shortly after his ill-fated theft attempt. The story also includes an image of Sorby's scarred hands. You can see the story here, but please be aware that you may find the images disturbing.

In remorseful comments, Sorby told legal magistrates, "My message is, 'Don't do it.' Before I did this, it was just an idea and there was no danger to it. Everyone thinks it's so easy and they have no idea how stupid they're being. When you think of getting involved in something like this, you don't think of the danger."

Sorby's plight was in the news because he was due to be sentenced for his crime. The Yorkshire Evening Post reports his sentence was a 12-month supervision order.

Elderly woman, digging for scrap, knocks out Internet in Eastern Europe

CNET Asia has reported that a 75-year-old woman cut off Internet access to thousands in the Eastern European countries of Georgia and Armenia when she dug up a fiber-optic line, thinking the cable was copper and aiming to scrap the metal for cash.

The enterprising senior citizen was arrested for her efforts. Local media outlets have begun calling her the "spade hacker" and report that she faces up to three years' imprisonment if convicted.

According to reports, officials at Georgian Railway Telecom, which owns the fiber-optic line, were surprised at the amount of damage done. CNET quoted the company's top marketing executive as saying, "I cannot understand how this lady managed to find and damage the cable. It has robust protection and such incidents are extremely rare."

One news outlet is reporting that the accused is claiming innocence and has been distraught since her arrest. ABSCBN News identified the woman as Hayastan Shakarian and said she "tearfully insisted she was innocent and she had never heard of the web."

Their story quoted her as follows: "I did not cut this cable. Physically, I could not do it. I have no idea what the Internet is." A Georgian interior minister, however, claimed that Shakarian had already confessed.

One person's resolution for 2011: Steal cable

Perhaps trying to keep up with the one entity that is rumored to have possession of half the world's copper, another entity in Richmond, Kentucky took advantage of the quiet New Year's weekend to make off with 3,100 feet of copper cable from an AT&T facility there.

WKYT in Richmond reports that the thief cut through a chain-link fence then broke through locks on the racks that secured the cable. The cable was valued at approximately $7,600.

One particularly compassionate commenter to the WKYT story regretted that the fence was not electrified. "THEN THE UNDERTAKER COULD MAKE SOME MONEY," the commenter wrote (in all caps, of course). "IF IT DON'T BELONG TO YOU, LEAVE IT WHERE YOU FIND IT."

Hear, hear.

Would-be cable thief gets shock of a lifetime

Not long ago I told you about the UK Chainsaw Cabling Massacre, when thieves cut down utility poles and stole the copper cables attached to them. Electrical cables contain significantly more copper than communications cables, so they are a more-frequent target of theft than are the twisted-pair cables we know and love.

In the chainsaw case, the thieves somehow were clever enough to get away with using the high-decibel saws and steal the cable undetected. More recently, a would-be thief was neither as clever nor as lucky.

Just a couple days ago in Gloucestershire, UK, an attempted copper-cable thief got the shock of his life when he tried to hacksaw through live electrical wires. According to the This Is Gloucestershire web site, the man "was hurled 30 feet into the air ... The injured man staggered from the site to a nearby house ... to ask for help. Paramedics arrived at 11pm to treat the man, whose arm was reported to have turned black."

Few commenters on the This is Gloucestershire site sympathized with the thief/victim. One commenter, Alan, chose not to take sides on whether to feel bad for the thief or cast ill toward him. Rather, Alan said, "This sort of thing will continue to occur until some sort of control is introduced on scrap metal merchants. Anyone selling scrap should provide photo ID and have their photo taken. If the scrap metal dealer cannot prove where his scrap came from he should be charged with receiving stolen goods."

Efforts along those lines have been tried in the U.S., reportedly with limited success.

Copper theft is rampant!

Found this story -- which, sadly, has become a common one -- lurking near the bottom of my "recent news" pile.

From the BBC News in the UK:

Gang rips out 1km of phone cable

Hundreds of people were left without their landline phone service for nearly 48 hours after thieves stole 1km (0.6 mile) of copper cabling....

...[Sussex Police] officers believe thieves posing as workers wearing uniforms or high-visibility jackets used a vehicle to pull the cable out of the ground and take it away...

...[Policeman] Thomas Stallard said: "Manholes running along the side of the road were used to access the cables and it appears the grass over some of the manholes was dug up to reach the sealed covers. The cable is 6in to 8in in circumference and is very heavy."


Every notice how there often seems to be some vaguely spectacular, caperish element to these copper theft stories? Thieves posing as workers used a vehicle to pull the cable out of the ground? Dang!

Or does the concept of "theft" just generally imply a certain amount of spectacle? Well...that's not a question for here. But here's what we can say: whenever the topic is copper, things get interesting. I can tell you that we here at the editorial desk certainly notice the popularity of such news, in terms of pageviews on the Web site.

And here's the thing about this rash of copper theft: it's absolutely becoming rampant, occurring every day all over this great country of ours, often causing considerable inconvenience.

So, finally, here's what I'm wondering: Are these stories just like belly buttons? Does everybody have one?

What say you, audience -- heard anything? Feel free to share any tales of copper theft, weird or otherwise, in the comments section below. Maybe from your town or region, maybe from a job site you've worked on, maybe from an installation you're involved in right at this very moment. We'd love to hear from you. -- Matt Vincent, Senior Editor