November 28, 2005
Junky Pole-Snatchers are Models of Precision and Efficiency
Light Poles Are Vanishing, and Baltimore’s Police Are Baffled, by Gary Gately:
“Thieves are sawing down aluminum light poles. Some 130 have vanished from Baltimore’s streets in the last several weeks … The poles… weigh about 250 pounds apiece … Last year, Baltimore, with a population about one-twelfth that of New York City’s, had a homicide rate more than five times as high. An illegal drug trade fuels much of the violence. Health officials say 40,000 addicts live among Baltimore’s estimated 650,000 residents. For at least a decade, addicts who cash in scrap metal to pay for their next fix have been ripping metal pipes, radiators and wires out of vacant houses, and prying cast-iron security grates and downspouts from buildings … thieves may be cutting the poles into pieces, then heading out of town to sell the scrap aluminum, which goes for about 35 cents a pound. It will cost about $156,000 to replace each pole, the metal arms that extend over roads and the glass globes.”
So the pole is worth $87.50 as scrap aluminum, but it costs $156,000 to replace?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:45 am
It is interesting that no one has followed up on this phenomenon for over two years. Meanwhile, no suspects have been found, no scrap metal dealers have cooperated with police had they found any sellers of surplus aluminum– and the botom line, it just isn’t worth it.
They say that people have dressed up as workers, but wouldn’t someone have reported something by now that looked suspicious, and wouldn’t someone have caught on before 130 could be stolen?
It isn’t even worth it as a prank, if you think about it. This doesn’t make sense at all– prank, nor profit.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Alain: It has to be profitable … the scrap metal guys aren’t going to be very “cooperative” with the police, are they? And you could truck 130 poles out of Baltimore to anywhere on the east coast quickly and easily, though shipping costs would ruin the thieves’ profit margin.