Copper Theft World Wide

[coppice]

Just wait, even with the dangers, EV batteries will be the next big thing to steal in the coming decades.
Their black market value next to copper will be magnitudes more for each car.

There was a spate of the charging cables being hacked off public high power chargers in the UK last year.

[Alex Eisenhut]

Not just copper, any metal. I've seen rough metal plates (steel probably) being stolen in broad daylight from a construction site.
I mean metal plates used as weights to secure their various construction and traffic signs.
I guess the crew wasn't expecting it because they left all that stuff unsecured after 4PM.

[nctnico]

Just wait, even with the dangers, EV batteries will be the next big thing to steal in the coming decades.
Their black market value next to copper will be magnitudes more for each car.

That is very possible. There are gangs out there which strip cars for parts. Some people find their cars like this in the morning:



This is a random google find out of hundreds of images.

According to the news, there are criminal networks active which distribute the parts across the globe. So an aribag stolen in the Netherlands could end up in a car driving around in Bejing (China).

[tom66]

Bumper and headlight thefts are low risk and easy to sell on because the parts are commonly damaged in accidents.

Dropping a Tesla battery (for instance) requires at least all four wheels to be lifted and the battery dropped onto a tray allowing it to be dragged out.  It also takes almost an hour and there are bolts in the middle of the pack so you need access all around the bottom of the car.

I don't see it being a particular issue but we might see manufacturers applying component protection to these parts, of course, you could still use the battery cells from them.

[coppice]

Bumper and headlight thefts are low risk and easy to sell on because the parts are commonly damaged in accidents.

Dropping a Tesla battery (for instance) requires at least all four wheels to be lifted and the battery dropped onto a tray allowing it to be dragged out.  It also takes almost an hour and there are bolts in the middle of the pack so you need access all around the bottom of the car.

I don't see it being a particular issue but we might see manufacturers applying component protection to these parts, of course, you could still use the battery cells from them.

If you want an EV's battery wouldn't it be easier to steal the whole car, take it to a dodgy workshop, and strip the entire car down there?

[tom66]

If you want an EV's battery wouldn't it be easier to steal the whole car, take it to a dodgy workshop, and strip the entire car down there?

Yes, at which point you might as well put the car on the boat to Albania and sell it to the friendly gentleman at the no questions asked import car business.

[coppice]

If you want an EV's battery wouldn't it be easier to steal the whole car, take it to a dodgy workshop, and strip the entire car down there?

Yes, at which point you might as well put the car on the boat to Albania and sell it to the friendly gentleman at the no questions asked import car business.

With parts for most EVs being ridiculously expensive, is the car worth more as an export to Albania, or as a source of spares to fix other cars?

[themadhippy]

Not just copper, any metal

funny enough was watching guy martin in columbia last night and he mentioned how there was a problem with metal manhole covers being stolen for scrap ,the solution replace them with plastic. But then the plastic ones got stolen,to be flogged to areas were the metal ones had been nicked but not yet replaced

[nctnico]

Bumper and headlight thefts are low risk and easy to sell on because the parts are commonly damaged in accidents.

Dropping a Tesla battery (for instance) requires at least all four wheels to be lifted and the battery dropped onto a tray allowing it to be dragged out.  It also takes almost an hour and there are bolts in the middle of the pack so you need access all around the bottom of the car.

Criminals are creative bastards. They can do it in 5 minutes for sure. With some car models (like Toyota Prius) it is common that the catalythic converter gets stolen. And that thing is under the car.

[schmitt trigger]

In Mexico, not only metals are stolen, but gasoline and diesel from live pipelines.
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of illegal pipeline taps, and accidents are common and many times fatal. This doesn’t deter gas thieves, aka huachicoleros.

[tom66]

With parts for most EVs being ridiculously expensive, is the car worth more as an export to Albania, or as a source of spares to fix other cars?

Outside of Tesla - who are an anomaly because they don't produce enough spares for their vehicles - why do you think EVs have high spare parts cost?  This is the first I've heard of it.

Most EV parts are shared with their ICE-car bretheren, the bumper on an e-208 is no different to the petrol 208 for instance.  It's the same car, with a different drivetrain.  If there are differences, the parts aren't particularly difficult to make... bumpers are bumpers, at the end of the day.  The parts that do vary don't tend to be the ones damaged in a collision.

Now, there will be a few differences, things like the charge port might be damaged in cars with a front mounted charging port (Zoe, Leaf for example), but I doubt these make much difference in the end.  Most severe front end collisions write off cars anyway, because airbags usually detonate and radiators get broken and then that's thousands to replace properly even before you've restored the bodywork.

EV's are somewhat more expensive to repair because workshops that have qualified technicians that can survey if a vehicle is safe or not are more limited, and because paint baking processes vary.  You have to bake the paint on an EV for longer at a lower temperature if you don't want to drop the battery pack, essentially. 

Having said that, when I went to insure my ID.3, I checked against the comparable model year Golf, and the insurance was 1% more expensive for the ID.3, so it didn't make much difference for me.

[coppercone2]

Just wait, even with the dangers, EV batteries will be the next big thing to steal in the coming decades.
Their black market value next to copper will be magnitudes more for each car.

Insurance companies will have a fit since usually the EV's structure is part of their battery pack and cutting it out from the bottom will trash the car unless easy hacks are found for stealing the entire car with greater ease.

thats amusing because it can get rigged to blow !

Some duerte style cop that burns down chop shops

[Analog Kid]

You mean Duterte, right?

[coppercone2]

yeah that nut, like a crooked mega shady bat man

they handle things like its the year 5000BC

[Siwastaja]

don't get money in hand but sent to a bank account. Thief is unlikely to leave their ID behind. A simple and proven effective solution

Proven ineffective - all that is needed is a simple middle-man. Or not even that - just sell the stolen copper and lie about its origin. But a middle-man who has a legitimate business helps tremendously to cover the tracks. And this happens all the time.

The control system you suggest can only work if the copper itself is somehow tagged. Because it is not, it is impossible to see it being of illegal origin. The petty crook can sell the stolen cable to a petty renovation entrepreneur for whom it is normal to sell used cable.

Real life is a tad more complicated than these populist slogans and "easy solutions".

Of course - it was not a serious suggestion. It was a reply to a post which claimed that their proven-ineffective solution is the only way. There are other ways and consider my post a thought experiment.

For some reason, there are countries where crime like this is extremely low; where you can forget your wallet to pick it up later from the same spot, keep doors unlocked, and critical infrastructure stays in place (and is only damaged by maybe earthquakes, not petty thieves).

Here we believe that more serious sentences (e.g., actual jailtime for serious crimes) does not help to fight crime. The USA is used as an example where long sentences + still lot of crime coexists. I disagree with the conclusion; USA is complex. Real life is more complicated than the populist "easy solution" of letting criminals freely do whatever they want without real consequences. Designing a real punishment system which targets really harmful forms of crime, is effective, and does not accidentally punish the innocent, is much more complicated. Choosing not to punish anyone in a modern European fashion is the easy way out from this dilemma, but is not working very well long-term. Doing nothing is easy, as is calling those who would like to see crooks in the jail "populists".

[coppercone2]

I think they underestimate how much employers leverage criminal records in things like pay, hiring, etc, making it a very strong feedback loop, where each time through your more desperate then the first time. We always had that pesky issue of slavery or substitutes of it.

And usually when you combine it with inflation, people are even poorer when they get out (how many companies expect you to 'rough it' for a while during a trial period before they give you livable money?), with less skills for their age, destroyed networking (tons of people are expected to get by on networking, they say you get ripped off if you don't for many professions), etc. The damage just caused by being 'away' is extremely severe, if you expect anything that has a semblance of a reasonable career.

[5U4GB]

Proven ineffective - all that is needed is a simple middle-man. Or not even that - just sell the stolen copper and lie about its origin. But a middle-man who has a legitimate business helps tremendously to cover the tracks. And this happens all the time.

Years ago I ran into someone who did something like this, laundered things through companies with high volume sales.  Some of the sales were off the books so recycled stuff was returned as new for a refund in place of the stuff sold off-the-books.  And that just one guy doing it, I'd hate to think of the overall amount of this that goes on.

If you want a large-scale example of this happening, look up the dark fleet anchored outside Malaysian territorial waters laundering (if you can call it that) Iranian oil, and more recently Russian oil.  This isn't a few spools of copper wire, this is 80,000 ton oil tankers colluding to avoid US sanctions.

[Halcyon]

That's how brazen some of these thieves are.  Could have easily killed the guy with that arc flash.

That should be a design requirement. It would stop the morons.

[Nominal Animal]

For some reason, there are countries where crime like this is extremely low; where you can forget your wallet to pick it up later from the same spot, keep doors unlocked, and critical infrastructure stays in place (and is only damaged by maybe earthquakes, not petty thieves).

The times I've mentioned this out loud here in Finland, and admitted that I do believe there are better cultures and worse cultures, that not all cultures are equal, I've been called horrible names and then excluded from the conversation .  Nothing mattered after that.

It doesn't matter that I always started by pointing out some of the worse features of the Finnish culture (especially related to alcohol).  You May Not Consider Some Cultures Better and Others Worse; All Cultures Are Equal, seems to be a social law here (at least in highly educated circles).

Yet, statistics do not lie: high trust and social cohesion matters, and all that is based on the local culture.

Real life is more complicated than the populist "easy solution" of letting criminals freely do whatever they want without real consequences. Designing a real punishment system which targets really harmful forms of crime, is effective, and does not accidentally punish the innocent, is much more complicated. Choosing not to punish anyone in a modern European fashion is the easy way out from this dilemma, but is not working very well long-term. Doing nothing is easy, as is calling those who would like to see crooks in the jail "populists".

Well put.

When the culture is in flux, like it is in Finland, old solutions no longer work, and responses to problems has to change.  It is not helped by the fact that traditionally, when statistics have shown that current approach does not work, we've stopped collecting those statistics, especially related to crime.  In Nordic countries, the social stigma of having been incarcerated was a huge factor in the efficacy of shorter sentences; nowadays, because of cultural change, that stigma does not exist anymore, and thus shorter sentences are less efficient (in preventing e.g. repeat offences).

[Poroit]

This add is a Ripper !!!!

https://www.metalmenrecycling.com.au/4-great-reasons-why-copper-is-the-king-of-scrap-metal/#:~:text=Copper%20is%20one%20of%20the%20most%20profitable%20types%20of%20scrap,have%20is%20clean%20or%20mixed.

I love the line :"Copper Scrap is Extremely Easy to Find"

[BradC]

It's not just cable either, a few years ago the neighbours opposite built a brand new house and the plumber left two short lengths of copper tube poking out of the brick work in preparation for connection to the hot water unit.

I did some work at a waste transfer station in a Perth Southern suburb. They have a "teaching and technology center" on site. Some time over a weekend the local lads hit it with a 4" grinder and removed all the external plumbing. Water and LPG. The caretaker arrived Monday morning to considerable flooding and empty LPG tanks. Same deal, cut off every pipe flush with the wall and slab.

Shame they didn't use an old brushed 4" grinder when they cut the gas pipework.

[.RC.]

Yes, at which point you might as well put the car on the boat to Albania and sell it to the friendly gentleman at the no questions asked import car business.

Cars could very well get geolocated and then refuse to work.  Electronic parts off the car will probably have their own ID and will not work when installed to a different car until some code is entered.

For well over a decade now some high precision machine tool builders have fitted accelerometers or such devices to their CNC machines that render the machines unfunctionable if the machine detects movement.  The machines upon installation require a factory representative to come and enter a code.  Earthquakes will set then off as well.   

This was to stop nuclear proliferation as the machines were accurate enough to be used for making parts for centrifuges for enriching uranium. The Japanese measuring instrument company Mitutoyo had their machines turn up in Iran and the company had sanctions applied to it.

[Psi]

Buying this 1kg spool of copper from Arrow for $4 last week felt like copper theft to me.

https://www.arrow.com/en/products/610226/cnc-tech-llc?q=610226


Digikey price
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/cnc-tech/610226/4924058

[Ranayna]

That almost looks like a pricing error. Or Arrow is desperate to get rid of stock.

[Psi]

That almost looks like a pricing error. Or Arrow is desperate to get rid of stock.

It's real, just them trying to clear out stock for some reason.
 
See the arrow thread about all their crazy discounts
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/arrow-electronics-having-50-75-off-mostly-nrnd-and-obsolete-componentshardware/new/#new