Posted on 08/12/2011 10:42:23 AM PDT by golux
Transient meth-head Kirk Wise probably made more money than you did last year -- and he didn't even have a job.
Wise, 45, is a professional copper thief who steals copper wire to support his $100-a-day meth habit. He's pretty good at it, too -- according to Wise, he's netted nearly $100,000 since January of 2010 by selling the copper to scrap-metal recycling businesses throughout the east Valley.
(...)
He admitted to everything -- he said he stole copper to support his meth habit and he'd netted $95,000 since last January. He told police he'd been stealing copper for three to four years, and has remained transient to make it harder for police to find him.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com ...
Receiving stolen metal is how those yards make money. They know what they are doing. The could care less about anything other than getting caught.
There was a tweaker in my home town who was bright enough to take a manhole cover with a serial number and name of the city on it to the scrap yard and try to sell it. He was arrested. I say that because it is no guarantee with the scrap yards. If they think they can get away with it, many will buy (obviously) stolen property like new house wiring.
The “recycling” centers DO have an obligation to not accept obviously stolen goods. How can you not be suspicious when someone comes in with 20 brass grave markers? These scrapyards should be prosecuted fully. Even pawn shops won’t take obviously stolen items. They know they’re in deep poop if they do. And “I didn’t know it was stolen” doesn’t hold water.
As for the junkie, the worse the better.
It’s the gungrabber argument because you’re blaming the non-criminals for the actions of criminals. According to gungrabbers all sales of guns are bad because some guns wind up in the hands of bad guys and the gun store doesn’t know which ones those are and can’t prevent it, and according to you recyclers are bad because some of the people they’re purchasing from have stolen the copper and the doesn’t know which ones and can’t prevent it.
The recyclers DON’T know who’s got their copper illegally. They can make some guesses, but they don’t know. Not until somebody gets busted.
People that are involved in criminal enterprises always know what is going on, people living in the shady parts of life are not innocent, naive babes in the woods.
The recyclers can read their product and it’s origins and quality, and their suppliers.
Photo ID, good record keeping, license plate numbers, and an investigator to report to, and inspection of some of the yards, and revocation of business licenses would go a long way to stopping some of this.
The recyclers aren’t involved in a criminal enterprise. They’re buying a product that is readily available legally, and selling it legally. Sometimes the person they’re buying from didn’t get it legally, but that doesn’t make the recyclers criminals.
I'm not blaming non-criminals for the action of criminals, I am saying these scrap yards are co-conspirators and criminals. It would just take a DA who gave a crap to prosecute. In California it would fall under section 496 of the penal code - receiving stolen property.
My analogy makes perfectly good sense. In both instances the wrong person is being blamed for things they did not do. You’re blaming the recycler for the fact that some but not all of the people they’re buying from are criminals and they have no way of differentiating.
You most certainly are blaming the non-criminals, and you just did it again. They are not co-conspirators or criminals, they’re people buying merchandise which is readily available legally and might, or might not, have been acquired by the seller illegally. If the law was the way you want it then everybody, including you, is a criminal, somewhere along the lines somebody gave you something that was not acquired legally at some point in its history. But you, just like the recyclers, have no way of knowing. If you want to throw them in jail lead by example, give yourself up.
Not even an ambitious DA would waste his time and money trying to prove that a scrap dealer knowingly received "stolen scrap".
Reading the entire story would help explain to you how the guy was caught, and that was with the cooperation of the scrap dealer who still had the stolen wiring on hand and had the transaction receipt. And that was only because the copper wiring remained in the same length as it was when stolen which helped in identifying it..
You'll never get an arrest let alone a conviction of a scrap dealer who has absolutely no idea where his scrap comes from...........
Wrongo Mr. Bubba, these yards were in existence long before the economy made it attractive for the ghetto scrappers (that's where it started) to start stealing........
Ten years ago, maybe even sooner, you never read of copper thieves because the cost of copper then was insignificant and not worth the time and energy needed to steal it from abandoned houses or whatever sources they used..........Hell, they never even bothered to bend over and pick up a penny.
It's only been in recent years that copper thieves have surfaced, due entirely on the rising cost copper on a global basis.........
They are engaged in a criminal enterprise, you seem to think that they don’t know what is going on and you don’t seem interested in fixing the problem but instead defending the fences.
Criminals have always had their connections to front their products to or to help them in their crimes, from shady pawnshops to shady hotels, to shady auto repair shops, to shady recyclers, and on and on.
The very first business that the criminal deals with to make his crime possible and profitable always knows the score.
I never said it was......but to the scrap dealer, it is.
What do you propose MrShoop? Require the scrap dealer to demand from the scrap seller that he document every piece of scrap that he is selling to the dealer? And how would he do that MrShoop? What kind of documentation would you require the scrap seller to have to insure that the scrap he is selling was legally acquired?
I have a personal friend who salvages scrap between trucking jobs. Would you prefer that he gets a state issued "scrap salvager" license issued from the state to insure that he can be tracked down should he be discovered to have sold some illegal scrap to a scrap dealer????
I was dealing with copper thieves a lot longer than ten years ago.
Copper has always been profitable, I have been salvaging it and scrapping it since the early 1960s.
Require the scrap dealer to demand from the scrap seller that he document every piece of scrap that he is selling to the dealer?
Lets see, my truck has 300 lbs. of rusted out steel farm equipment, 125 lbs. of old aluminum siding, another 125 lbs. of old iron railings, and 15 lbs. of copper tubing...........
So how much documentation would you require for that MrShoop?
True enough about plain old copper pipe. But when the lowlifes are bringing in entire air conditioners with sawed off connectors, or historical artifacts, or graveside urns, they can’t plausibly say “I had NO idea it was stolen”.
They aren’t engaged in a criminal enterprise, I’m interested in defending the truth.
How does the recycler know which person is bringing legit copper and which one isn’t? These aren’t shady anything, these are normal scrap metal/ recyclers you can find in the phonebook.
I'm sure you have but it's only been the recent years of widespread house abandonments and loss of jobs that has turned copper theft into such a widespread problem.......
So what's your answer to stopping the scrap metal theft? What kind of restrictions would you like to see imposed on the scrap yard owners?
Since it is a fact that knowingly receiving stolen goods, then our only disagreement is whether these scrap dealers know they are receiving stolen goods. I think it is obvious.
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