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For Thieves, Copper Is Gold in the Gutter
With the price of aluminum near a 20-year high last summer, thieves hauled away bleacher seats from Fort Greble Field, home to a D.C. school baseball team. In recent weeks, thieves have stolen catalytic converters from cars.
(Courtesy Of Clark Ray)
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Chuck Carr, a spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade association, said industry watchers have seen a rise in relatively large-scale, brazen thefts, such as the stealing of scrap-laden trucks. "We've seen situations where loaded shipping containers have been stolen," he said.
Carr said his organization has encouraged dealers to join a nationwide alert system that tracks unusual thefts and warns dealers to be on the lookout for stolen scrap.
In Chevy Chase, which has among the lowest crime rates in the District, the downspout thefts created a localized uproar. "When there's thefts like this, people get nervous, and their sense of calm, their sense of safety, gets broken," said Andy Solberg, the police commander whose district includes the neighborhood.
The crime wave lasted about a month, until police arrested two men in a stolen car on their way to a scrap yard in Prince George's County. The trunk and back seat were loaded with crushed copper downspouts, Solberg said.
The men could face stiff penalties for driving a stolen car -- a felony -- but the copper heists are misdemeanors and probably won't bring much jail time, Solberg said. "You can steal a lot of copper downspouts in Chevy Chase, or you can steal three bars of soap from CVS, and in the eyes of the law there's no difference," he said.
Metal bandits watch prices closely, of course, including those for stainless steel. In April, Ernest Vinson of Landover was charged in Charles County with the theft of as many as 35 empty beer kegs snatched from behind two Waldorf restaurants, an Applebee's and an Outback Steakhouse.
In a sworn statement, Sheriff's Detective J. McKenzie wrote that Vinson admitted that he stole at least some of the kegs. At the Applebee's, he and an accomplice are suspected of cutting the lock of a dumpster-area enclosure and loading the kegs into a sport-utility vehicle. McKenzie wrote that Vinson told her he had sold the kegs to a scrap buyer for about $27 apiece.
Some beer distributors have sought to protect themselves by increasing the deposits keg beer buyers plunk down for the kegs, which is traditionally as little as $10. The thinking is that people will keep them tightly secured.
"We're not trying to penalize anyone," said Keith Chmiel, vice president of sales at an Anheuser-Busch distributor in the Washington area. "We just want to get our kegs back."
He might be in luck. The price of stainless-steel scrap dipped recently to about 36 cents a pound, according to the average price given by four area recyclers. That translates to only about $11 a keg.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
