A special team of police has been set up in Britain to investigate metal theft from telephone poles, manholes and even church roofs – that adds up to as much as 360 million pounds annually.
Scrap dealers will be the focus of the investigative efforts of the National Metal Theft Crime Unit, in a bid to stem the trade in stolen metal. A six-week trial of the effort will be mounted before it is decided whether the programme should be extended, according to a statement issued by the Home Office.
Aluminium, copper and steel traded at record levels in 2008, before falling off in the economic downturn. In recent years, theft of items including rail tracks, statues and street lights have been reported in countries reaching from Japan to South Africa, as criminals cashed in on the metals boom.
“Metal theft is a major headache for our industry,” said British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA) spokeswoman Lindsay Millington. “There are too many criminals evading the rules and seeking to piggy-back the industry’s success.”
Severn Trent, the second-largest water company in Britain, reported last autumn that the theft of metal from its sewage treatment and water works for the preceding six months amounted to more than 500,000 pounds.
Thanks to www.bloomberg.com for the above quotes, for more information about this article please visit their website.
www.recyclemetals.org
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