If you’ve priced out home improvement projects lately, you know all too well that copper is basically the Beyoncé of building materials right now: expensive, in high demand, and clearly not easy to get your hands on. Unfortunately, criminals know it too, and that knowledge just paid off in a big way here in the Sioux Empire.
According to Dakota News Now, a thief, or possibly a whole crew of them, pulled off a pricey heist at a Sioux Falls construction site, making off with roughly $10,000 worth of copper wire. The theft happened sometime between 3:30 PM on Friday, January 30, and Tuesday, February 3, at a construction site near North Career Avenue and West Research Drive.
Workers arriving on site were the first to notice that something wasn’t right. Several large spools of copper wire, definitely not the kind you accidentally misplace, were gone. A closer look revealed that a fence surrounding the site had been cut, giving the thieves easy access to the valuable wiring. This definitely wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment grab-and-go. Someone came prepared.
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Copper isn’t exactly a random target these days. The metal has been flirting with record highs in early 2026, with prices hovering between $12,000 and $13,000 per metric ton. That’s nearly a 40% increase compared to last year, which explains why copper wire has suddenly become as hot an item as Taylor Swift tickets…