An acquaintance of mine went to check on his mothers house in Elizabeth, NJ as it had been vacant for several weeks after she had been recently hospitalized. He did a walk-through and everything looked fine.
Thought to wash his hands before he left, turned on the faucet and no water. Went to check the shut off valve and it was missing - and so was every piece of copper pipe in the house.
Nothing else of significant value was in the house because they had taken all of her jewelery as a precaution earlier. Strange.
Curious. I don't know of any way to remove all the copper pipe from a home without causing a great deal of damage to walls, etc.
You'd think that people willing to work that hard could find honest work that would be at least as remunerative.