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Oct 26, 2007 4:28 pm US/Eastern
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Copper Wire Thieves Arrested After Con Ed Hit
EASTVIEW, N.Y. (CBS) ―
Westchester police are holding four men in custody for trying to steal copper wire from Consolidated Edison, CBS 2 has learned. It turns out that copper -- found in pennies -- is worth a hefty hunk of change these days.
Police say the theft was on a scale that they almost never see: dozens of huge pieces of insulated copper electrical wire cut straight off a spool at a Con Ed facility in central Westchester in the dead of night.
"At approximately 3 a.m., a patrol officer observed what he thought was a suspicious vehicle," said Mount Pleasant Police Chief Lou Alagno.
Alagno says the thieves bypassed security at the Con Ed site, entering through a wooded area behind an adjoining office complex. They nabbed the four suspects at the scene, but there were others who got away. A search for the remaining suspects was unsuccessful.
Officials believe the suspects are part of a professional operation. They say some of them were dressed in camouflage while others were donned in all black. Because they knew where to go and had the same gloves, boots, and wire cutters used by Con Ed, investigators are looking into whether they had inside help.
Copper thievery is on the rise, along with the price of the metal, which has risen 500 percent over a five year span.
"It is readily converted to cash," Alagno said. "The scrap value of copper today is $3.45 per pound and the cable would have weighed many hundreds of pounds."
Copper thieves will often steal copper pipes out of vacant homes, which is what police in Irvington, N.J. believe sparked last Friday's gas explosion that killed a man and severely injured four others.
The copper taken from Con Ed on Friday was worth almost $10,000, but the spools it was cut from were damaged and now are unusable, so Con Ed's loss totals more than $30,000.
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