CBS 5 Investigates With Anna Werner

CBS 5 Investigates: Metal Thieves Strike Richmond

RICHMOND (CBS 5) ― Thieves break into homes, but they're not taking TVs or computers. They want the wires from the walls. It's a problem affecting entire neighborhoods, so an East Bay realtor asked CBS5's Anna Werner to investigate.

"This was a cute little place." That's how realtor Staci Campos used to describe one new home in Richmond. Not any more. "There's no plumbing, there's no functioning bathroom, there's no functioning kitchen," said Campos.

She said thieves broke in to steal anything made of metal. "They busted completely through the wall, through this fiberglass, through the sheetrock."

And not just at one home, at dozens, making these homes nearly impossible to sell.

"It's not even worth it to do the repairs because it will just happen again," said Campos.

So what's behind it all? The rising price of metals. Demand from overseas means copper now fetches over $3 a pound.

A would-be thief like the one recently captured on undercover video by a private detective, can literally make out like a bandit. What's was he doing in the video? Snipping cables in the basement of a home, looking for copper wire. That is, until he realized someone was watching.

In the city of Richmond alone, police data obtained by CBS5 shows 255 reported thefts of metal in just two years, and not just from homes.

"It knocks out the lights for a quarter mile," said Richmond Detective Sergeant Joe Silva.

Sergeant Silva said thieves strip copper wire from the electrical boxes powering city street lights.

"The city was replacing $10,000 to $30,000 a month in wire. But for Sergeant Silva and his partner, detective Gus Vegas, even that seems relatively minor when compared a complex of buildings we visited.

"All these buildings have absolutely been gutted of copper wire," said Detective Vegas.

It's a mothballed steel factory where crews of thieves have turned stripping out wire into their own cottage industry.

Why go to all that work? "It's a big money making venture," said Detective Vegas. And the payoff is huge: Silva and Vegas say nearly a million dollars worth of wire's been stolen from the factory over the past year.

So what happens to all that metal? Richmond police say much of it gets sold to recycling companies, who may or may not know what they're buying.

So CBS5 Investigates did a spot check of local recycling operations. At  Action Metal we brought in some old metal pipes, and filled out a form with name and address, but no one checked our driver's license or any other I.D. They just handed over the cash.

"My personal belief is they should be bringing in documentation," said Vegas.

We wanted to ask Action Metal about the transaction, but they turned down our request for an interview.

At a second yard, Ren Metal Salvage and Recycling, we watched as two men brought in a load of copper wire. Employees here did check I.D. and paid the men with a check instead of cash.

But after watching our tape, another transaction, raised questions for detective Vegas.

"The lengths of those coils are consistent with someone who has cut them or put them over their shoulders or carried them away." "To you this looks suspicious?" we asked him. "Yes, that looks suspicious."

So we asked Ren Metals' weigh master Korey Kirk: "Do you have people come and try to sell you stuff that has been stolen?" His answer: "Well, if we do that we usually try to notify the police but we kick them out of here."

Kirk said they keep detailed receipts on items turned in. "Like I said, if the cops come looking for it then we will show them what we got and we'll give them the information on the person who brought it in." "But at that point isn't it going to be kind of hard for the cops to track that down?" we asked him. "Well we've got to stay in business too you know," he answered, shrugging his shoulders.

"It's just a tough nut to crack, but we do what we can," said Detective Sergeant Joe Silva.

As for Campos: "As long as they have a place to take it and they can get cash that day and it's quick and easy it's going to keep happening. It's got to stop, somehow."

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