[StBernard] PRECIOUS METAL

[Westley Annis]

PRECIOUS METAL
Thieves motivated by the high price of copper are taking brazen risks to get
it 
Sunday, December 03, 2006
By Michelle Hunter
East Jefferson bureau 

These days, it seems copper is more valuable than gold. 
 
Authorities have reported more and more thieves are stealing and, in some
cases, ripping out copper piping and wiring from homes, businesses and
schools in the New Orleans area. 

Law enforcement and scrap industry officials agree that the local spike in
copper thefts has been fueled by a triple threat: the increase of copper
prices internationally, the vast tracts of vacant and therefore unwatched
homes and apartment complexes since Hurricane Katrina, and an influx of
unlicensed nomadic scrap dealers who ask few questions and pay cash. 

As Stanley Hurlee, co-owner of Airline Salvage scrap yard in Metairie puts
it: "Copper's the thing right now." 

Police reports across the area prove that point. 

There's been a rash of arrests in the past two weeks. Three people were
arrested by Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office officials for filching $800
worth of copper gutters from an Old Metairie home. In a separate case, a
woman, her 16-year-old son and her husband were arrested after they were
caught removing copper pipes and tubes from a vacant Metairie apartment
complex. And Thursday, authorities arrested two men they say spent the past
several months stripping copper out of 58 homes in Chalmette. 

In New Orleans, dozens of nearly vacant neighborhoods are filled with homes
and businesses loaded with copper. Since January, New Orleans police
officers have opened investigations into more than 80 cases of copper theft,
according to Sgt. Jeffrey Johnson. These types of burglaries occurred before
the storm, but in small numbers, he said. They've surged since Katrina. 


Hot metal 


At Airline Salvage, Hurlee said he gets plenty of aluminum and brass
salvaged from ruined homes. But it's copper that has become a hot commodity,
attracting the attention of both legitimate and illegitimate opportunists,
he said last week as he walked his 5-acre scrap compound. 

Copper is an essential building material used to make plumbing pipes,
electrical wiring, gutters and certain type of roofs. At the current local
prices of $1.80 to $2.50 a pound, depending on the grade and condition of
copper, the typical two- or three-bedroom home could yield about $600 worth
of scrap copper from the walls alone, according to Vincent Costanza,
co-owner of All Scrap Metals LLC in Kenner. 

But copper can also be harvested from air-conditioning units and almost
every electrical device, including printers, copying machines and
calculators, Hurlee said. 

Global supply and demand has doubled the price of copper over the past year,
according to Bryan McGannon, spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling
Inc., a Washington, D.C., trade group. The increases came courtesy of the
recently expired U.S. housing spurt, the still-kicking construction boom in
Asia and supply disruptions during a copper mine strike in South America. 

"Typically, we see a correlation between the price of copper and an increase
in thefts," McGannon said. 


Tempted by payoff 


Copper's new price tag was definitely the motivation behind Chris Porter's
attempt to steal the gutters from an Old Metairie home on Nassau Drive, he
said. Porter, Nicole St. Romain and John Couste were arrested Nov. 24 after
a neighbor overheard the trio trying to load a pile of used copper gutters
into a van, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office report said. 

An experienced roofer, Porter said he'd worked around scrap metal but never
considered stealing anything, let alone copper, until the price recently
became right. He said the gutters would have fetched about $1.80 a pound,
compared to only $1 a pound about a year ago. 

"We just got a wild hair," he said, "and now I'm paying for it." 

Porter and his friends targeted a vacant home under renovation after being
damaged by Katrina, as did the unknown thieves who stole $5,000 worth of
copper pipes and wiring from an apartment complex in the 100 block of Walter
Scott Street in Jefferson on Nov. 18, the fourth such theft at that address,
according to Sheriff's Office reports. Owner Danna Doucet said Friday that
he's now replacing the piping at the apartment with a cheaper plastic
substitute. 

But copper looters don't always strike at night when no one is looking. On
Nov. 16, Harbor Police caught three men posing as FEMA employees trying to
steal 300 pounds of copper from a building at the Port of New Orleans about
10:45 a.m. Schools and even churches have been targeted. 

"Since the storm, the areas have become so deserted," said Johnson, the New
Orleans Police Department sergeant. "They can just go inside of a school and
retrieve the copper. They'd look like contractors or like they're doing
demolition." 


Unauthorized dealers 


Local copper thieves have found an easier time exchanging their plunder for
cash by frequenting rogue scrap dealers, some of whom came from out of town
and set up shop temporarily after the storm, according to Hurlee and
Costanza. These dealers usually have no occupational license, and they do
not have the state-mandated permits to operate a scale for weighing the
metal. 

They park on the side of the road advertising to buy copper, require no
driver's license or identification from the seller, keep shoddy records, and
more than likely cheat people out of their money, Hurlee said. He said he
knows several people who were duped into taking $1,000 for $5,000 worth of
copper. 

Todd Thompson, an official at the Division of Weights and Measures, which is
part of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, said he's
received several complaints about illegal scrap dealers in the area. His
office hands out the annual certifications state law requires for scales and
the people who operate them. 

Anyone making a living off an unregistered scale is breaking the law,
Thompson said, as is anyone selling commodities based on weight without a
scale. 

Airline Salvage and All Scrap require customers to show legal
identification. They videotape the customers, and their transactions are
recorded into a computerized record-keeping system. Aside from the chance
that stolen copper could go through their hands, nomadic dealers and those
who are fracturing the laws hurt the economy by denying tax income to
communities, Thompson said. They cheat the local residents and their
customers. 

To combat the thefts, Johnson said, his officers have asked scrap yards to
check identification. And he said residents should keep an eye out for
anyone suspicious in their neighborhoods. If something doesn't seem right,
call the police, he said. 

. . . . . . . 

Michelle Hunter can be reached at mhunter at timespicayune.com or (504)
883-7054.