Copper Thieves and Murderers -- Director's Cut, Part 1
My Money and Markets column for tomorrow is being massacred in the editorial process. Here's my "director's cut" of part 1...
When you consider that copper has doubled in the last year to $3.38 per pound, it’s not too surprising that people will take a lot of risk to steal it. Mix that with the basic stupidity of many criminals and you get unlucky copper thieves– approximately 7 people have been killed so far this year trying to steal the copper out of live electrical wires. 30 copper thefts have been big enough to make the national news. Copper is 100% recyclable, so thieves steal the wires and melt them down for sale at a scrap metal yard.
I used to sell copper at scrap metal yards, in my younger days, when I ran in the company of thieves … and murderers.
See, one of my first jobs was working for a subcontractor for the phone company. We dug holes in the ground to access buried lines. You can’t use a backhoe for that – it’s delicate work. You need a wooden stick with a blade at one end and human muscle at the other.
I was the muscle. In those days, copper was so cheap that the scrap wire was just thrown away. So my coworkers quickly clued me in to their side business. They’d take the long pieces of cast-off phone cable out to the woods and burn off the rubber coating over a fire. What was left was copper scrap – worth about 78 cents a pound.
As for the thieves and murders – the only things lower than the pits we dug was our pay. So the job attracted people just released from prison (thieves) and people on the federal witness protection program (gangland murderers). I remember listening to one guy’s story about a mob hit and then asking him, incredulously: “Should you really be telling me this?”
Copper has a fascinating tale all its own... (see part 2)
When you consider that copper has doubled in the last year to $3.38 per pound, it’s not too surprising that people will take a lot of risk to steal it. Mix that with the basic stupidity of many criminals and you get unlucky copper thieves– approximately 7 people have been killed so far this year trying to steal the copper out of live electrical wires. 30 copper thefts have been big enough to make the national news. Copper is 100% recyclable, so thieves steal the wires and melt them down for sale at a scrap metal yard.
I used to sell copper at scrap metal yards, in my younger days, when I ran in the company of thieves … and murderers.
See, one of my first jobs was working for a subcontractor for the phone company. We dug holes in the ground to access buried lines. You can’t use a backhoe for that – it’s delicate work. You need a wooden stick with a blade at one end and human muscle at the other.
I was the muscle. In those days, copper was so cheap that the scrap wire was just thrown away. So my coworkers quickly clued me in to their side business. They’d take the long pieces of cast-off phone cable out to the woods and burn off the rubber coating over a fire. What was left was copper scrap – worth about 78 cents a pound.
As for the thieves and murders – the only things lower than the pits we dug was our pay. So the job attracted people just released from prison (thieves) and people on the federal witness protection program (gangland murderers). I remember listening to one guy’s story about a mob hit and then asking him, incredulously: “Should you really be telling me this?”
Copper has a fascinating tale all its own... (see part 2)
Check out my new gold and energy blog at MoneyAndMarkets.com
posted by Sean Brodrick @ 3:01 PM
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