Thieves strike gold in metal of all kinds

Tag : metal supplies

Wrong.
One of the three units at the church had been ransacked. Everymetal part of any value was gone. Not even a cage that encased theair conditioner had stopped the theft.
Metal thieves have been getting creative in the past couple years-- not just in South Jersey, but across the United States.
Driven by high international prices for scrap metal and a troubleddomestic economy, scavengers are scooping out the stuff anywherethey can find it.
They've taken aluminum and copper parts from at least a half-dozenair conditioners in Glassboro, police said. In Gloucester Township,about 18 catalytic converters -- pollution-control devices rich inplatinum, rhodium and palladium -- were cut out of vehicles onused-car lots last month.
Two bronze memorial plaques -- together worth an estimated $2,000-- apparently were stolen from Will Hope and Son, a memorial makerin Burlington City. And in Woodbury, police said three men werecaught clearing old metal out of an abandoned warehouse on ChestnutAvenue.
"It's sort of like a gold rush," said Tim Considine, a professor ofnatural-resource economics at Penn State. "There's gold in junkyards and stuff just sitting around."
Still, the payoff may not prove huge. The four men charged lastweek with taking a Cherry Hill horse statue -- worth some $500,000-- stood to gain no more than a few thousand dollars from sellingthe bronze as scrap, police said.
A scrapper sold a $2,500 transmission to Camden Iron and Metal for$7 earlier this month.
"They're not really looking for the big score," said Camden PoliceLt. John Maddox. "Everybody is doing it now. They're just trying tomake a dollar."
More and more, those dollars are coming from overseas. The exportof recycled metals from the United State soared from 2002 to 2006,according to a U.S. Geological Survey report.
Heavy industrialization of China and other Asian countries has putsharp demand on global metal supplies, lifting prices to new highs,market observers said. Aluminum, for instance, hit $3,229 a tonthis month, just shy of its all-time high in 2006, Reutersreported.
U.S. ports exported 1.48 million metric tons of recycled aluminumin 2006, up from 613,000 metric tons in 2002, according to the U.S.Geological Survey. Separately, the 14 million metric tons ofrecycled iron and steel that left the country in 2006 were worth$1.31 billion, more than triple the value of those exports in 2002.
Recent steel prices have hovered in the range of 50 cents a pound,while aluminum and copper are selling for roughly $1.35 and $3.75 apound, respectively, according to metalprices.com and BloombergNews.
Much of the exports are funneled through scrap yards and dealers.In fact, a local dealer, Camden Iron and Metal, may be on track tobreak its export record this year. The company has shipped morethan 630,000 tons of scrap metal since January, the South JerseyPort Corp. reported.
But determining whether metal has been stolen can be a tough taskfor second-hand metal dealers, law-enforcement officials andindustry representatives said.
Thieves will often cut, bang, drag and dirty their cache to alterits appearance and give it a more credible look. At that point, themetal looks much like any other, said Bruce Savage, vice presidentof communications for the Institute of Scrap Recycling andIndustries.
"A piece of metal can be a legitimate piece of metal that someoneowns," he said. "That's hard to tell from someone who has gone to aforeclosed home and stripped that house of aluminum siding."
Because of that, Savage said, scrap dealers tend to follow generalguidelines.
Some dealers will refuse to buy goods they suspect may be stolen.Others will keep records -- driver's license and license plateinformation, what was sold, when it was sold.
In Gloucester Township, where the catalytic converters were taken,police said proving ownership of scrap pieces can be a big problem.
"If the guy is signing off (on a transaction), how do you proveit's not his?" said township Police Capt. Raymond Evans. "Most ofthe time, it's generic material 20,000 people could have."
Elsewhere in the township, metal delivery racks -- such as thoseused in grocery stores and restaurant storage units -- have beenreported stolen, too. In Evesham, copper wiring disappeared fromconstruction sites early in the spring.
And in Winslow, at the King of Prussia Technical Corp. Superfundsite, aluminum lids and diamond-plate hatches were reported stolenon three separate occasions during May and June.
Considine, the Penn State professor, called the spike in prices"kind of unprecedented, sort of like the oil boom." The increasebegan about five years ago, he said.
The last run-up in metal prices was in 1989 and 1990, wheneconomies worldwide were booming, Considine said. And before that,he said, there was another boom in the late '70s.
"The United States is sort of the king of scrap," Considine said."We've been producing automobiles for over 100 years -- and allsorts of other stuff: bridges, ships, you name it."
Given the overseas demand, he said, "it's not surprising thatpeople are engaging in high-risk illegal activities to make aprofit."
Reach Adam Smeltz at (856) 486-2919 or asmeltz@gannett.com