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Thursday, March 13, 2008

$18,000 of Copper Wire Stolen

By Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
    Three tons of copper was stolen from a business near Edgewood on the last weekend of February.
    "It's somewhat lawless out there," said Jim Curry, who owns Industrial Electric Inc., the company that was burglarized.
    The 6,000 pounds of copper, estimated to be worth $18,000, stolen from his business was wire in coils of 50 to 100 feet salvaged from a job done at a Creamland Dairies ice cream plant in Albuquerque, according to Butch Foster, a supervisor at the Edgewood business.
    The weight of the copper was estimated, but Foster said when an 8,000-pound forklift was used, the copper was difficult to pick up.
    He also said stealing the wire would have taken quite a while. Three trips and at least two people may have been involved, he said.
    Foster said the thieves likely cut the fence and probably drove a small pickup into the yard, or used some other vehicle that would fit under the fence's 6-foot-high top rail.
    From there, the thieves knew exactly how to get to a military-type shipping container, where the mass of copper was stored, Foster said.
    He added that he's not even sure what day of the weekend the robbery happened.
    "Whoever stole it knew it was there," Curry said. "It was somebody who had a working knowledge of the company."
    Had the wire not been stolen, it would have been recycled somewhere in New Mexico. Curry said he has a pretty good idea of the value of the copper, because he knows many of the major copper recyclers in the area. That also means he has help looking for anyone offloading massive amounts of copper, he said.
    But Curry said the wire was probably not even sold in New Mexico.
    "I think the thieves had it sold before they stole it," he said.
    There has been one other theft, a welder, at the East Mountains' branch of Industrial Electric Inc. since the store opened two years ago.
    After this most recent incident, Foster said the yard might soon have "a couple of great big dogs that don't like people."
    Curry explained a kind of Catch-22 that comes with theft: Curry can only expand his business if it is secure, and putting his money into security measures hinders his ability to expand his business.
    That means expansion might have to wait for additional security.
    "We'll work unilaterally to the Edgewood Police Department," Curry said.