Stealing wire from railway lines and telephone companies is the new game in town. They need miles of it in order to result in a decent weight to sell on as copper scrap. Firstly, they have to steal it, then load it onto transport it, which requires a lorry to carry big drums or a big covered van. Then it must be taken to a safe place well away from prying eyes and unloaded.
A fire is then started, hence they must hide away least someone calls the Fire Brigade on seeing smoke. The wire is sheathed in a plastic coating to protect against weathering which must be melted off. As it all smoulders the plastic gives of a smell of bad fish!!! Again, no a thing to have emitting from your garden hut and permeating onto next door's washing!!!
The copper wire is then put into a smelter, which produces even more smoke and liquid copper is then poured off into battens of pure copper. This is a very labour intensive and time consuming performance, which to me is just not worth the bother!! There are too many mouths that can and do flap as the folk involved are hardly top shelf. The will all have had their collars felt, at some time, no doubt and one fingerprint found gives away the whole squad. A silly spot check for a broken light on a lorry or the fire being spotted in an empty factory unit or the smell of fish, nowhere near the Sea could give the game away. A flyby using heat recording cameras in secluded areas would show up fires. There are far easier things to steal than copper wire.
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