Rising Ripoffs

"We're taking this very seriously," says Lt. Gary Christensen, who heads the property crimes division of the Long Beach Police Department. "Imagine driving your car at 30 mph and hitting one of these holes. It can tear the wheel of your car right off and cause injury to the people in the car. Or riding your bicycle over one of them. And for a pedestrian this could be a fatal accident." Christensen says his department has broadcast information to recycling and scrap metal dealers and even attended the scrap metal association's regional meeting. But, he adds, "We need more help from the public. Our officers can't be in every alleyway and on every street and intersection."

So far, no arrests have been made in Long Beach, but there have been a few busts in other cities. An Indianapolis man's arrest ended a spree there that left more than 30 missing in late January. And police in Atlanta busted a large manhole cover ring in which three men had loaded a van with several covers and their frames. The three men were arrested and charged with interfering with government property and theft by receiving. "We got a 911 call from someone who saw someone throwing something into a manhole," says Maj. Joseph Harris of the Atlanta police. "We had an officer close by who was able to detain the three men. Inside their van the officer found a total of nine manhole covers and about the same number of frames, which weigh 200-plus pounds."

This epidemic is not just limited to manhole covers. It is tied into the overall problem of theft of recyclable metals—aluminum, copper, stainless steel, brass, etc.—all of which have increased in value as demand has risen. Virtually anything containing recyclable metal is at risk of being stolen—from catalytic converters in cars to copper pipes in homes. Even beer kegs. The beer industry estimates that it is losing some $50 million in stolen stainless steel kegs every year.

Cities across the country have enacted, or are considering, metals theft legislation. But the resulting patchwork of statutes has resulted in a set of poorly written laws that are unenforceable and ineffective and that unnecessarily harm recycling, suggests Frank Cozzi, outgoing chair of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), the industry's largest trade organization. Cozzi says his organization has worked diligently to educate scrap metal and other recyclers about the theft problem and to urge that dealers comply with the law.

"Metals theft has become a huge problem all over the world," says Cozzi. "As a trade association with representatives from 35 countries, we've been dealing with this for a few years, but it has definitely gotten worse in last year or so as a result of the high demand from China and India and other countries."

Cozzi's association has teamed up with the crime prevention organization group McGruff the Crime Dog, implemented ISRI scrap theft alerts, and made recommendations to members to reject stolen material. In a strongly worded letter on ISRI's Web site, Cozzi urges scrap dealers to take the high road and not purchase stolen material. But many scrap dealers—even the ones who are not buying the manhole covers—are resisting efforts to cooperate with police. The argument commonly heard from the scrap metal dealers is that it's sometimes impossible to differentiate stolen items from legal ones. They fear regulation, retaliation and prosecution, says Cozzi, who is trying to get his members to stop talking to their lawyers so much and start talking to police.