Thief gets his own billboard after robbing advertising agency
Someone stole 15 transformers from a billboard advertising company in New Zealand. The transformers are worth $5000, but the thief probably wanted them for the $150 worth of copper they contain.
The billboard company responded by placing a security photo of the suspected thief on its own billboards. The company is offering a $500 reward.
Thief gets his own billboard after robbing advertising agency
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Well I guess next time he will be sure to steal the cameras as well.
If I were that thief I'd probably get caught trying to steal the huge picture of myself from the billboard.
mhlaxp - or even better, draw a mustache and hat on the picture so no one recognizes that its you!
AD AGENCY THIEF
you are welcome in this house
Ahhhh New Zealand. The country where $500 still passes as a reward.
There's something about metal theft that makes me gleeful when the thieves manage to electrocute themselves in the act.
Yes, that's mean and vengeful, but there you go.
Maybe it has something to do with the damage they do to public sculptures, graveyard fixtures, memorial plaques, etc. Items of great value destroyed because a meth head needs a fix.
Or the fact that my workplace has been hit by laptop thieves two weekends in a row.
I say... Go Monkeywrencher, Go! Down with those disgusting billboards. Whose to say he wanted the copper (to sell for drugs?) Maybe it was his way of sayin' "Lights out motherf*er!" I'd like to say the same to a few billboards in my neighborhood!
At my old job, some guys stole the lightning rods and all the copper wires that ground them. They probably made a few thousands dollars on that! :O
Oooh... ELECTRICAL transformers! This story was a lot cooler when he'd stolen 15 copper robots.
This will be even funnier when the innocent man, pictured above, sues for slander. Homebrew policing FTL!
Anyone else appreciate the juxtaposition of a camouflage shirt and a reflector jacket?
Interesting that his day-glo orange vest did not entirely shield him from suspicion - a passerby still thought him suspicious and took the photo.
Perhaps if there had been two guys in orange vests, only one of them working...
I'm with Stefan Jones. This guy is scum, and I hope they bust his ass.
Metal thieves will rip off anything and sell it for its value as scrap: artwork, handrails, historical plaques and markers, ground wires, well covers, grave fittings, emergency sprinkler systems, stock fences, railway spikes and tie plates, home gas lines, air conditioning units, copper roof gutters and downspouts, beer kegs, irrigation pipes, automobile catalytic converters, high school bleachers, antique airplane wings, custom-built scientific equipment, storm grates, manhole covers, fire escapes, anything -- they just plain don't care. Churches are frequently targeted because they're empty part of the week. So are houses and businesses temporarily left vacant in areas hit by hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods.
Copper's the worst. Thieves have stripped wires out of power stations, historical buildings, street lights, railroad crossing signals, and any other outside wiring they can get at. They'll steal essential power lines during severe weather conditions, strip water pumps and wiring out of desert irrigation systems, and leave whole areas helpless. In Tennessee, they pulled down an entire cell phone tower.
Metal theft is a serious worldwide problem.
So don't call this guy a monkeywrencher. He's a common thief who's into a particularly destructive variety of crime. If he's graduated to stealing transformers off billboards, he's already done plenty of damage elsewhere, and if not stopped will go on to do more.
Assuming they got the right guy, of course.
As of last week he was indentified but the police can't find him.
Come on, you'd think an ad agency would come up with a better headline. What a missed opportunity to unleash some wit...
the economic crash has plummeted copper prices as well. Poor,poor thieves.
This will be even funnier when the innocent man, pictured above, sues for slander. Homebrew policing FTL!
I think that he was on a roof with tools and the stolen items when he was photographed makes your scenario unlikely.
Well I guess next time he will be sure to steal the cameras as well.
The camera was operated by a passer-by who (rightly) thought he seemed shady.
Anyway, I don't hold much hope that he'll get a custodial sentence when he's rounded up, which is too bad as he really seems to need help that he's obviously not getting on the street.
Sculptures sold for scrap, police say; security guard, boyfriend arrested
I can't find The Oregonian's follow-up feature online. The incident involved a stolen getaway truck which was towed away and lazy accomplices.
Now I want to go out and buy a transformer thief. Curse you, power of advertising!
i'm pretty sure that's prince charles.
Okay, I get that metal theft is serious. (And you know I'm just joking, when I call him a monkeywrencher, right?) I was just thinking wouldn't it be cool if thieving drug addicts could only satisfy their fix by dismantling egregiously ugly items like billboards? Seems sort of like a win-win...
But, yeah, stealing art and safety sprinkler systems and such... that's not cool.
Metal thieves leave hospital powerless
Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, July 15
Police in New Brunswick are still investigating a rash of copper wire thefts that left a Bathurst hospital without power last week. Thieves broke into five NB Power substations apparently looking for copper wire, knocking out power for about 10,000 utility customers.
Wow. I always steal Demerol when I break into the hospital.
Release the hounds; they call him a "mongrel".
Disclaimer: Wikipedia ""Mongrel" is a derogatory epithet in Australia. It is generally used to refer to an ill-bred man; a man of poor manners or morals."
I plan on using the term tonight, on the Metro, for someone eating/playing loud music/speaking loudly on a cell phone/etc.
Frank in Virginia - beware the racial implications of calling someone a mongrel. Just make sure you're not calling a mulato or metis "mongrel", or things could get ugly...
@Stefan Jones, TNH: Perhaps we should examine the assumption that metal thieves comprise some kind of international cartel, every member of which should be condemned by virtue of his or her association with the theft of historical landmarks and hospital transformers.
Metal theft is generally petty, save a few high profile cases. The amount of money someone gets from stealing metal is almost always very low, which suggests very strongly that it's a crime of desperation. Why else would someone risk jail time for the $30 of copper in an air conditioner?
It's true that often metal thieves are desperate because they're addicts. Those people need our help and sympathy, not our contempt.
In my experience, however, lots of metal thieves are just homeless people or impoverished street kids - people who need money bad. They're scavengers who have run out of unclaimed stuff to scavenge, so they steal bits here and there. It's definitely not nice, but should be viewed in the full social context.
"ddcts" dsrv nthng bt r cntmpt. Thr s n sch thng s ddctn, jst prsns wh chs t ct n slf dstrctv wys bcs thy vl th shrt trm vr th lng trm.
My grandparents house got 8 feet of water in Katrina. They got screwed over by the insurance company, and then tried to start rebuilding their house on their own. Really soon after they got the pluming working with new copper pipes, the pipes were stolen.
Zikzak, you're way behind the times. Metal theft used to be an urban scrounger thing, but as global metal prices have soared (especially for copper; China is using a lot of it), it's gotten much more widespread and aggressive. There's so much metal-stripping going on in the U.S. that it's actively slowing the rate of recovery in the housing market.
It's not poor junkies and street kids who are climbing onto church roofs to pull off their spouts and guttering, dismantling entire warehouse piping systems, breaking into power stations, stealing lakeside floating docks, cutting down utility poles, dressing up as work crews in order to partially dismantle bridges, pulling all the ACs out of schools and apartment complexes, or using a Caterpillar excavator to load 1,700 pounds of stolen copper onto a truck. Stories quoting law enforcement are now talking about breaking up rings of professional metal thieves, or pointing out how much trouble it is to catch thieves when adjoining states have less stringent reporting requirements for scrap metal dealers.
It's also not urban down-and-outs who've been repeatedly hitting rural irrigation systems and other infrastructure. California agricultural organizations are estimating that metal theft doubled between 2004 and 2005, and went up another 400% in 2006, and that farmers lost around $6 million worth of metal in the Central Valley in 2006 alone.
The utilities are screaming. Here's a snoozer of a report from the DOE called An Assessment of Copper Wire Thefts from Electric Utilities. Summary: they say it's a real and growing problem, but they don't have complete data yet.
Another outcropping of statistics: copper theft from all sources is up 430% in Phoenix since 2003, with something like 2,700 reported cases in 2007. Those are thefts reported to the police. A lot of frequently-hit businesses don't even bother any more.
Scrap metal prices have dropped off recently, but it's not helping. The period of peak metal prices introduced many people to the idea of stealing metal and selling it as scrap, and they've kept at it even as prices have dropped. A number of states (f.i. Florida and California) have metal-theft laws in the pipeline, and a whole lot of counties are trying to address the issue on their own. A bipartisan bill has been proposed at the federal level by Orrin Hatch and Amy Klobuchar.
Further stories: A very good general article in The Guardian. CNN. The New York Times on the problem in Cleveland. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Fox News, reporting from Springfield OH. Newsweek, starting with the manhole cover problem and moving outward from there. The Energy Bulletin, including stories from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. The Telegraph and the Guardian on the problem in Britain. The Age, on Australia. The Guardian again, on Japan.
Now let's consider the guy on the billboard. Does he look like a junkie or a street kid to you? He doesn't to me. He's stealing transformers off billboards, so he's able-bodied, and he owns tools and a vehicle. He isn't committing random crimes of opportunity; he's going after his targets by category. This isn't some poor unfortunate engaging in petty crime to get food. This is a bad guy.
I thought he was just looting and busting up an ad agency. Not a bad thing in many cases. Thus my parody of a sign many of us had in our San Francisco windows at one time: "Angela Davis/ You are Welcome In This House" (she was a fugitive, oh ye of little memory or no history).
Who'd a thought he was part of a big-time organized crime activity? Are we sure the apocalypse didn't already happen?
Also, Zikzak, stripping the copper out of a device may mean replacing it. You pay $3-5K for a new A/C unit and your compassion may dry up pretty quickly. They may only get $50, but you're out 100 times that amount.
Go ahead and disemvowel me again. "Addicts" chose their self-sestruction, just like those 1000 pound Jobba-the-hut imitators chose their behavior, or the diabetic who continues to eat sugar, or the person with pulmonary problems who continues to smoke.
It's like the looting problem: if it continues unchecked, people who would never have thought of it on their own will learn to do it from people who would.
Pseudonym, you've posted that in the wrong thread. Where did you mean it to go?
@TNH: Interesting, I didn't know most of that. The people I know who've stolen metal are all homeless or ex-homeless, so that's who I think of when I hear about metal theft. I'd guess that a significant majority of the instances of metal theft are indeed by very poor opportunists, but the vast majority of the overall profit and damages caused by metal theft is probably caused by professionals who do it on the large scale you describe. I just think it's a shame to lump everyone together, sort of like condemning "drug dealing" with no differentiation between an inner city kid and a Colombian kingpin.
I agree though, if you've made the decision to become a professional thief and picked "stealing metal" as your modus operandi, screw you. Especially when there are so many awesome choices, like flash-mob bank robber or international art thief!
@Antinous: It's definitely bad news to ruin someone's A/C for $50. But in my mind it's way better than physically accosting someone for the same amount, which is probably a pretty likely alternative if they're that desperate for $50.
I think the reason it's upsetting to people is that it's a new take on crime: rather than stealing for profit, they literally destroy for profit. In principle that's even more twisted, but considering the situation of someone who'd commit small-time metal theft I just can't work up the outrage.
#27 Zikzak stated thay many of these metal thieves are addicts and deserve our sympathy. Echoing many other posters, I expressed my contempt for these thieves, I stated my belief that they are resposible for their actions. I was disemvoweled for this. This is ironic, seeing as I am on the same page as the Neil Gaiman post concerning censorship. My follow-up was in protest, and included examples of self-destructive behavior that most people believe are the responsiblity of the individual, just as drug use is the responsibility of the individual.
pseudonym, i believe that u were dv'd for how u said it. not that u said it. although it is a bit off-topic as well. remember, this is a conversation, not a pissing wall. if u r dv'd, then u r doing it rong.
@pseudonym: If only all those addicts had someone like you in their lives. I'm sure your "no-nonsense" personal responsibility lecture would straighten them right out.
It's about time someone told those dang crackheads to just quit smoking crack already.
I took a position contrary to someone else, who said the addicts didn't deserve contempt, with the implication that they were less than responsible, and they deserved sympathy. Echoing others expressions of contempt, I stated they were responsible and deserved contempt. Pretty straight forward. Yin to Yang. However, mine is not politically correct.
pseudonym,
It was a hateful, shrieking troll rant. If you have a problem with being disemvoweled, take it to the Mod thread (for which there is now a handy link at the top of the page.)
Zikzak,
I'm someone who has smoked my share of crack,crank,pot, and eaten plenty o' shrooms,acid, snorted plenty blow. I've never called in to work high or hung over, never spent my rent on drugs, never stolen to get drugs, and never had any problems with drugs because I control myself and I am self-aware. I think someone like me would be just the ticket. Hey, would like to get in on the ground floor of my new drug clinic ?
Them darn addicts!
They should just sing!
http://www.bizarrerecords.com/galleries/special/AddictsSing.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/mining/3543370/Metal-prices-fall-further-than-during-Great-Depression.html
and Pseudonym? You say you've spent twenty years guarding people. In all that time you never came to to the conclusion that there is variability in humans?
The knee-jerk stealing-for-drugs response is lame and user-phobic. If you had a response like that involving say an ethnic group that may be stereotypically associated with criminal acts there would be outrage.
User-phobia is one of the the last frontiers for bigots and discrimination to roam. Threads like this on a liberal blog are testament to that.
pseudonym: Self-awareness isn't something you neccessarily have from birth, it is a learned quality. I know alot of people who haven't had the opportunity to develop that greater awareness.
Addiction is a disease. Not everyone who uses drugs gets it.
Zikzak, metal theft is a weird problem that's snuck in under the radar for most people. It's exactly the kind of thing that Homeland Security should have been paying attention to, but hasn't. (Wouldn't you think that stealing the tie plates and spikes out of railroad ties, and stripping the wiring out of railway signals and crossing gates, counts as an attack on domestic peace and security?)
I know about small-scale metal theft. I live in Brooklyn. There's always some of that going on. The guy who ran the truck rental lot down the street from my old apartment used to require that trucks brought back after hours be parked with their rear bumpers almost touching the back wall of the lot. It was the only way he could keep the neighborhood scavengers from stealing the extensible metal loading ramps off the trucks. They'd get maybe $20 for them as scrap, but their list price as ramps was in the low four figures.
This large-scale stuff is something new, though. It's like the difference between some guy selling a few baggies, and large-scale distributorships having shooting wars over territory.
The other night for the first time I drove straight over a manhole with a missing cover. For a little while there, I was so dazed that all I could think was, "Thank ghod this is a rented car." And as one article pointed out, stolen manhole covers may be nasty suspension-wreckers if you're driving a car, but if you're on a bicycle or motorcycle, they can kill.
An awful lot of the city's metal infrastructure is casually accessible, because no one ever thought people would take it, and it would be difficult unto impossible to make it unstealable.
Pseudonym: I now see that when you started going on about addicts, you were referring to the common belief that all metal thieves are meth addicts. Some undoubtedly are. Many aren't. Metal theft is a global problem, and it's hitting countries that don't have anything like our amphetamine abuse problems.
More to the point, this thread is for discussing a billboard, and has expanded into a discussion of metal theft. It's not here to give you a place to vent about your contempt for addicts. You have some kind of issue going. I don't know what it is. What I do know is that it doesn't belong here.
I'm generally against expressions of contempt. I'll make an occasional exception, but if the question should come up when I'm not around, you can assume I'll disapprove.
Teresa, one of the more notorious (as in, noted on local newscasts and in local papers) metal thefts in Phoenix recently was when thieves stole exposed water pipes outside the county animal shelter, leaving hundreds of dogs and cats without water. (For about half a day; replacing the pipes was given top priority. Surrounding the pipes with sturdy steel cages was given second priority.)
The "commercialization" of metal thievery from small-time origins reminds me of the growth of mail theft. When I first started working as a letter carrier in the late 1970's, mail theft was fairly rare, and usually involved someone taking birthday cards (either outgoing or incoming) out of mailboxes, hoping to find cash gifts inside.
About the mid-1990's, we started getting more mail thefts, only now they were targetting outgoing bill payments, and were being done by organized, professional, groups and gangs. The thieves chemically wash the payee information off the checks, replace it with false info, and cash the checks.
(Ever notice that there are fewer blue mail collection boxes on street corners or at shopping centers than there used to be? One of the major reasons their numbers have been reduced is because mail thieves were ripping entire collection boxes off the sidewalks, throwing them into trucks, and taking the entire shebang away to be sorted thru at their convenience.)
Bruce, that story about the water pipes was exactly what I mean when I said that metal thieves just plain don't care what they steal. And when you think of how many buildings in that area have exposed pipes -- it's not like they have to be protected from freezing, after all -- there's a lot of potential damage waiting to happen. If they get more ambitious, there are water-regulating substations at remote locations that have all kinds of wiring and bronze fittings in them. Those things do tend to have chain-link fences around them, but you can sell the fence, too.
I have to ask: are they now stealing mailboxes for their scrap value, too?
The next wave of theft may be refrigerants. Last summer, my A/C died - dead. No refrigerant, must be a leak. They filled it up and it's still full four months later. Where exactly did that hundred dollar an ounce freon get to if there's no leak? Of course, in this case it's an industry scam.
We also had a big appliance theft ring when the housing market was hot. Stainless steel appliances go into an empty, newly built house. Appliances disappear later that night. You can guess who was doing it. The appliance delivery people.
We also had a problem with store windows being shot out. Dozens in a year. The culprits? The plate glass company.
Either we have a big problem in the US or I just happen to live in hell.
someone open the filler port? Is there a drain cock? I thought Freon was long illegal? Didn't they used to smuggle it from Mexico for car AC?
oil's down, everyone should specify plastic pipe where possible.
You have to use an extraction kit, which only an HVAC tech would have. In my complex, all the A/C units are on the communal roofs with multiple ladder accesses. You would never question someone headed up to the roof, because it could be for a dozen different units. And, yes, freon is no more. I just used it as a generic term. The stuff that my unit uses now is $100 for a fill up. It's being phased out in 2010 and will probably go up to $1,000 for a fill up.
wanna supplement your income?
http://cgi.ebay.com/REFRIGERANT-RECYCLE-KIT-w-2-70-Hoses-and-Sight-Glass_W0QQitemZ160264016204QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_HVAC?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/09/recycling-global-recession-china