A Bloomington man is facing a felony charge after authorities say thousands of feet of copper wire and a commercial power washer vanished from Cargill’s grain terminal in Savage. Michael Alan Fredin, 44, was booked on April 14 and is accused of a string of late-night thefts at the facility along the Minnesota River. Prosecutors say the alleged haul, along with equipment damage, tops $35,000.
According to Bring Me The News, investigators recovered a glove on a storage tower at the terminal, sent it to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and got back a DNA match to Fredin. The criminal complaint, as described in the report, also cites text messages that read like a how-not-to guide for avoiding a paper trail: a March 5 message says, “How we going to get this wire out or into the woods somehow,” and a March 6 text reportedly reads, “You going to help strip this shit.” The outlet reports that officers then placed a monitoring device on a vehicle investigators linked to Fredin, and that an April traffic stop turned up tools with scratched-off serial numbers along with a large amount of copper wire.
Booking and charges
Scott County’s online jail roster lists Fredin as having been booked into custody on April 14 on a felony theft charge under Minnesota law. The entry shows the intake and charge status as court-pending while prosecutors move the case toward the district court.
What the police say was taken, and the timeline
Prosecutors allege that a commercial power washer worth about $9,000, along with thousands of feet of copper wire valued at roughly $30,000, were reported missing from the Cargill facility at 12101 Lynn Avenue South on June 19, 2025. The charge description cited by Bring Me The News formally accuses Fredin of stealing property valued at more than $35,000 in incidents that prosecutors say occurred over a period stretching from late 2025 into April 2026. The same report notes that Fredin is scheduled to appear in Scott County District Court on April 24.
Why this matters
Copper theft has turned into a costly and increasingly organized headache for utilities and big industrial sites across the country, as companies and lawmakers scramble to tighten rules around fencing operations and scrap sales that thieves can exploit. Nationally, telecom and infrastructure operators reported thousands of cases last year. Industry reporting found AT&T logged more than 10,400 copper-theft incidents in 2025, a staggering number that Light Reading reported on while detailing the repair costs and service disruptions that followed…