COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (KDVR) — It’s a bold and costly crime wave sweeping through Commerce City: Thieves are targeting copper wiring in broad daylight.
Investigators say it’s happening everywhere. Outside businesses, along highways and even in neighborhoods. It took two officers just to lift one spool of copper, weighing nearly 300 pounds, from a recent bold theft.
“It seems like it’s been a little more active lately,” said Derek Aragon, Detective Sergeant with the Commerce City Police Department. “I think the numbers show that we’ve probably doubled in the rash of thefts in the last six months.”
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Police in Commerce City say they’re seeing a surge: Seven thefts in just September alone. That’s double the norm, and the criminals are not exactly subtle.
From plowing through locked gates with stolen vehicles to cutting through privacy fences just to access spools of copper. Even backflow preventers outside businesses aren’t safe.
Aragon tells FOX31 that when copper is worth hundreds of dollars per pound, thieves are willing to risk anything, even their lives…