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Darwin Awards and Church Bells

Thievery of 'Scrap' Metal on the Rise

By Charles Hawley

Thieves looking to profit from the sale of scrap metal are getting more numerous -- and perhaps a little dumber. With prices for metallic garbage rising, it's not just banks being knocked off any more.

If you want glory, of course, it might be better to knock off your local bank or jewellery store. But for many thieves around the world these days, swiping scrap metal is offering an attractive way to make an extra buck. Prices for the stuff, after all, have been on the rise for years. And recently, so too have the number of thefts.

On Thursday, the most recent offense hit the headlines: A four-member gang in Serbia had spent the last few months absconding with fully 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) of train tracks in the eastern part of the country. The perpetrators have now finally been taken into custody.

More spectacularly, an abandoned factory in the Czech Republic recently collapsed after potential Darwin Award nominees cut through steel beams, intending to steal them for scrap. Unfortunately, the beams were holding the structure up. Two of the thieves, aged 23 and 26, died in the incident.

In Detroit this week, robbers made off with brass from a building's water supply system, causing a number of apartments to flood. In England, church bells are especially popular among scrap metal snitches. In the US, the beer industry is complaining about the number of kegs that end up sold as scrap. The prices paid on the recycling market are often higher than the $10 to $30 left behind as deposits on the kegs.

Demand on the Rise

"On the whole, demand for scrap metal is climbing across the world," Jörg Lacher, spokesman for Germany's Federal Association for Secondary Raw Materials and Disposal, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "The economy is good, the steel industry is at full capacity, and the need for scrap metal is there." Scrap steel is often an important component in manufacturing new steel.

Lacher says that, whereas a ton of scrap steel cost €110.70 (around $148) in 2002, it now goes for almost €250. Prices at the recycling yard for other metals, such as copper, nickel and tin are likewise high. Indeed, in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the amount of non-ferrous metal thefts this year has already exceeded that stolen all last year, according to the state's office of statistics.

As early as last October, the European Metal Trade and Recycling Federation issued a warning on its Web site saying: "For some months now, rising prices for metal scrap, which is a major commodity and raw material on the world market, have been leading to a very sharp increase in the number of thefts."

Still, Ross Bartley from the Bureau of International Recycling points out, the phenomenon is by no means a new one. "A metal works has some valuable stuff inside, just like the local jewellers and the tobacconist on the corner," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Lead has been stolen off church roofs since lead has been put on church roofs."

But it has become increasingly difficult to ignore the number of shockingly brazen thefts of metal, from manhole covers to guard rails, that have hit the headlines recently.

Like the case at the beginning of this year in Windesheim, not far from Frankfurt. A thief spent months carting away 6.6 tons of organ pipes from a warehouse belonging to a firm specializing in repairing church organs -- including pipes belonging to a nearby synagogue. The loss has been valued at over €100,000 -- the trial against the 34-year-old suspect began last Friday.