Metal theft

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Memorial in England, the sign was stolen.

As metal theft is theft of non-ferrous metal or iron refers to the perpetrators, the raw materials illegally to scrap dealers sell.

Theft of nonferrous metals

Tin theft

Tin is used in everyday life, especially for household goods, and was a sought-after prey for entry theft because it is easy to remelt. Because of rampant tin theft, for example, an ordinance statute was issued in France in 1529 , according to which every owner had to mark his or her pewter belongings.

Copper theft

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
Copper theft has been around for ages.
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Relation of theft of metal to the copper price index (Austria, 2006–2012)
2006
  
 121.3
  
 849
2007
  
 175.0
  
 1283
2008
  
 168.5
  
 1147
2009
  
 150.5
  
 443
2010
  
 191.3
  
 1269
2011
  
 216.3
  
 1569
2012
  
 206.6
  
 1691
Price index   cases Source: BMI, Statistics Austria 

Before 2010, when the world market price rose rapidly due to the needs of China's booming economy, the phenomenon spread. As the price of copper rises, so does the number of cases; in June 2015, around one kilogram of copper cost EUR 5.30. Overall, copper is by far the most stolen non-ferrous metal.

The thefts relate to scrapyards and goods and scrap metal stores in the metalworking industry, construction sites, roofs and house installations, as well as garden and grave equipment and the like, and increasingly, lines of the transport infrastructure, especially railways, with particularly serious consequences.

Special case groups (selection)

Line theft

Within the phenomenon of the theft of non-ferrous metal, the theft of electrical lines has a special position due to its enormous damage to the operation of the infrastructure and its special risk for the perpetrators. Line theft is a largely new phenomenon of the 2010s. The perpetrators are primarily targeting copper, but also aluminum, stealing overhead lines in particular, but also easily accessible cables and copper earthing ropes.

Line theft is favored by the fact that long, widely ramified line networks cannot be permanently checked across the board and there are numerous hidden spots, while for example the theft of roofing copper in settlement areas could be noticed quickly by residents in most cases.

All operators of large networks are affected by line theft. These are in particular transport companies , with the overhead lines on rail or trolleybus routes and the communication lines along the tracks, but also telecommunications, energy supply and mining companies.

damage

The particular damage pattern lies in the fact that unsuccessful raids lead to high follow-up costs: even if the loot cannot be removed, the infrastructure operation collapses until it is repaired.

At Deutsche Bahn, for example, the number of line thefts rose sharply in 2011. In total, there were 3,000 cases, 1,000 more than in the previous year. Repairing the damage cost the company around 15 million euros in 2011. As a result, almost 11,000 trains were delayed. Due to a failed cable theft, rail traffic was paralyzed for 30 hours near Arnstadt .

In Austria, thefts are concentrated on railway lines in Eastern Austria, in particular ÖBB construction sites, and the Vienna underground network, with over a third of the cases (total copper theft) taking place in Vienna and a good quarter in Lower Austria, the rest in Styria , Tyrol and Upper Austria . The damage to the ÖBB amounts to a good two million euros a year, with a total of eight million euros in damage from copper theft (pure loss of material), so the theft of lines is likely to account for around a third of all non-ferrous metal theft in Austria. In 2009, the material damage to the Austrian Federal Railways, at 200,000 euros, was a tenth of 2011.

risk

Often the cable thieves put themselves in mortal danger, on the one hand by the train operation, on the other hand by the electrical voltage of 15,000 volts with an ungrounded overhead line.

Countermeasures

Line theft is difficult to prevent preventively, the raids take place very quickly.

It is difficult to clarify about the scrap dealers, they are not guilty of stolen goods if they buy in good faith (in Austria, for example, negligent stolen goods were abolished in the 1970s, because otherwise stolen goods were even unwittingly acquired at flea markets and similar street sales would lead to a criminal offense). Much of the booty in Central Europe is smuggled across the borders to Eastern Europe in gangs. After a registration requirement for sellers of scrap metal was introduced in 2012 in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where this form of crime is also a major problem, an agreement was reached with the scrap metal dealer industry in Austria at the beginning of 2014 on voluntary ID checks and registration of car license plates.

The intensive cooperation of the police with the operators and the security staff is intended to prevent the thefts. In 2012 the Austrian Federal Railways founded their own copper task force to deal with this problem.

The thieves should also be deterred by new security technology. In Germany, metal parts and cables are equipped with an artificial DNA as part of a DNA property marking so that Deutsche Bahn can be identified as the owner. On the one hand, this makes reselling the goods more difficult; on the other hand, the cable thieves can be linked to the theft because the artificial DNA sticks to the perpetrators for a long time.

Theft of construction copper

English policemen equip scrap dealers to fingerprint sellers of scrap metal.

The theft of construction copper also led to more and more sensational cases in the 2010s, where entire roof sections were cleared. Cases are also known in which installations (water or central heating pipes or electrical cables) were stolen from temporarily vacant buildings or new buildings that have not yet been occupied.

Like the theft of lines in railway systems, this form can have higher follow-up costs for the victim, but compared to public transport, the damage is consistently limited to the person who is stolen.

Bell theft

Thefts of bells are also special cases , because cast bronze is a particularly valuable material. For example, in Meiningen in the 1570s, bell theft was made a sacrilege under the death penalty .

Eduard Mörike planned a work called Glockenidylle in the 1840s , which was supposed to be about a bell theft case.

A problem similar to the line theft of the 2010s was the theft of bells at railway barriers in the early railway age, which is why these were replaced by other signaling devices.

Theft of graves and monuments

Since the inscriptions on grave monuments (and often grave accessories such as lanterns or flower vases) are often made of copper or bronze, these too are haunted by metal thieves. Since cemeteries are often not specially guarded at night, they seem easy prey to the perpetrators. In addition to the material damage, the emotional component of these thefts should be emphasized, as they usually arouse great concern and indignation among the relatives of the deceased. In the case of old or artistically valuable tombs or other monuments with metal parts, there is also the loss of historically significant cultural monuments.

literature

  • Aiden Sidebottom: Metal theft. JDiBrief Series. UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, London 2012. ISSN  2050-4853

Web links

Commons : Metal Theft  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Institute for Research in the Early Modern Age: Early Modern Age Info , Volume 14, Issue 1, 2003, p. 56.
  2. ↑ Bundeskriminalamt: Sicherheit in Österreich: Crime trends and packages of measures 2013. Table theft of metal in Austria vs. Copper price index 2006 to 2012 , p. 29 (pdf, bmi.gv.at, accessed June 16, 2015).
  3. ↑ a b c d Life-threatening cable theft. at polizei-dein-partner.de.
  4. ↑ a b c Metal thieves: Cable theft costs Deutsche Bahn 15 million euros a year. In: Spiegel online.
  5. ↑ This bush hunts thieves! In: picture online.
  6. ↑ «We came to Switzerland to steal»
  7. ↑ Alliance against metal thieves. In: Der Tagesspiegel. July 11, 2012, accessed June 22, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Fight against metal thieves. (No longer available online.) Telekom, July 10, 2012, archived from the original on June 22, 2015 ; accessed on June 22, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.telekom.com
  9. ↑ Attempted cable theft paralyzes train traffic for 30 hours. On insuedthueringen.de
  10. ↑ About: Vienna: U6 interrupted for hours after cable theft. In: Die Presse online, January 18, 2012.
  11. ↑ a b Copper theft - Mikl-Leitner for identification requirements for dealers. ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.industriemagazin.at archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Industriemagazin online, July 24, 2013.
  12. ↑ a b c Arming against copper thieves. Petra Tempfer in: Wiener Zeitung online, January 18, 2014.
  13. ^ A different case, however, was, for example, the vandalism of an early retired ÖBB employee in Tyrol 2008–2012; 2400 euros fine for copper cable thief. tirol.orf.at, March 26, 2013.
  14. ↑ ÖBB are preparing against copper thieves. tirol.orf.at, September 18, 2012; 400 meters of cable cut in the middle of Vienna. orf.at, November 12, 2012.
  15. ↑ For example, the multiple theft of entire roof sections of the Protestant castle church Berlin-Buch in February 2014 ( Theft of the church roof. ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.schlosskirche-berlin-buch.de archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original - and archive link according to instructions and then remove this note. Evangelical Church Congregation Buch, March 8, 2014; Thieves steal copper from the roof of the castle church. Morgenpost.de, November 16, 2014); or the roofs of the Halbenrain elementary school and the Lebring middle school in Styria November 2012 ( copper thieves stole the roof of the elementary school. steiermark.orf.at, November 1, 2012; copper thieves on a foray in Styria. orf.at, November 2, 2012).
  16. ^ Metal theft in Berlin-Mitte: Watergate in the new BND building.
  17. ↑ Writings of the Association for Saxony: Meiningische Geschichte und Landeskunde , Volume 29, S. 158 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  18. ^ Eduard Mörike: Works and Letters - Letters - 1842–1845. Volume 14, edited by Albrecht Bergold and Bernhard Zeller, Klett-Cotta Verlag, 1994, ISBN 978-3-12-909360-3 , entry 261,34 , p. 718; see. also Euphorion supplementary booklet, Volume 1, Verlag C. Fromme, 1895, p. 117 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  19. ↑ The problem is mentioned, for example, in the newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations 1865, p. 119, column 1 ( limited preview in the Google book search), and suggests a disk with the inscription Halt .
  20. ↑ See this press report and the reader's comments on it: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/kriminalitaet/metalldiebstahl-auf-friedhoefen-altmetall-statt-totenruhe-12309057.html