[quote]COLUMBUS, Ohio — Determined thieves have gone to great lengths to get their hands on valuable scrap metal.
Prying catalytic converters off cars in public parking lots. Throwing a rope over copper communication wires, attaching the rope to a car and pulling the wires down miles at a time. In one case in 2008, an entire fire truck was stolen, cut up with a blow torch and sold.
A new Ohio law takes aim at what officials say is a growing problem with the theft and sale of essential metals. The thefts have raised both cost and safety concerns for the state.
"It's a pretty significant problem," said Richard Baron, executive director of Ohio Homeland Security.
Lawmakers unanimously passed Senate Bill 193 in June, which requires scrap metal dealers to register their businesses with an online database before Jan. 1, 2013. The database will only be accessible by law enforcement to aid in investigations, not as a public record.
Dealers are no longer allowed to accept certain materials, such as burned copper wire, since thieves commonly take down telephone wires, burn the plastic shielding from around them and then sell the copper for a large profit.
The law carries penalties for thieves, and for dealers who are caught not keeping proper records. Known thieves will be placed on an electronic do-not-buy list accessible by both dealers and law enforcement.
Starting Jan. 1, 2014, the law also requires scrap metal dealers to keep records of all their transactions and send them to the Ohio director of public safety the following business day by noon. The records must include information such as a picture of the seller and the weight of the product they're selling.
The first offense for scrap metal dealers who fail to provide accurate records is a first-degree misdemeanor, which can come with up to six months of jail time, fines and a suspension of their business for up to 90 days. Subsequent offenses become felonies with stricter penalties.
Baron said most types of metal stolen are parts of crucial state infrastructure.
"The theft of these causes information systems and communication systems to go down, and overall infrastructure being at risk," he said. "That's why this is such an important bill."
Bob Fitzsimmons, a manager of Berea Metals & Recycling in Cleveland, said he supports the law, though he did have some reservations from a business standpoint.
"It's going to be a lot more work, absolutely," he said, referring to the records requirements. "I'm not sure how we're going to handle it until we start doing it."
Another inconvenience for businesses comes in the form of a $200 fee to register with the database, plus an annual $150 to remain in the registry. Ohio officials hope those fees will be enough to cover setting up and maintaining the database, but aren't sure since officials don't know how many scrap metal dealers currently do business in the state.
Fitzsimmons said scrap metal businesses are hurt by the thieves. If law enforcement comes by to reclaim stolen material, dealers are simply out the money they gave to the sellers.
"We lose out on that material and the money paid out, and that's where it hurts," he said. "I've talked to police about it before, and they say you can go to court and say you were the victim of a crime to get your money back. But that normally doesn't work out."
Fitzsimmons hopes the law will prevent those situations, but he's concerned that people will find other ways to cheat the system. Even if thieves are placed on a do-not-buy list, he thinks they'll give the merchandise to friends to sell in their place.
"They can go around it," he said. "The only thing we can do is what we're required to do, but there's always loopholes."[/quote]
[url=http://www.policeone.com/investigations/articles/6040589-Ohio-regulates-scrap-dealers-to-stop-metal-theft/]Source[/url]
seems smart. I'm aware of the fact there are people who go into/around dangerous abandoned buildings and risk tearing them down to get some metal, or people that just outright steal random metal shit to make a buck.
Its so stupid the amount of churches and different buildings that have been hit by these assholes. Thank you Ohio, hopefully it works and this is implemented in other states.
I hope this goes through smoothly. Methheads in Arizona have been known to steal metal cremation urns, and sell them for scrap.
[quote]
Dealers are no longer allowed to accept certain materials, such as burned copper wire, since thieves commonly take down telephone wires, burn the plastic shielding from around them and then sell the copper for a large profit.[/quote]
... Why not just use wirecutters?
remember the story about that entire bridge being stolen without anyone noticing
scrap metal thieves are fucking hardcore
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;38517357]
... Why not just use wirecutters?[/QUOTE]
Requires more effort.
Instead of throwing them in a pile and dousing them with gasoline.
Well, thats pretty smart.
If there's no demand, there'll be no offer.
[quote]Starting Jan. 1, 2014, the law also requires scrap metal dealers to keep records of all their transactions and send them to the Ohio director of public safety the following business day by noon. The records must include information such as a picture of the seller and the weight of the product they're selling.[/quote]
Seems a little excessive to me, I dunno if I'm comfortable with the idea of my picture and personal information being sent to law enforcement for their scrutiny every time I sell a junk radiator I've pulled out of one of my cars or something. Also, say I sell my old cat converters because I've put a new exhaust system in my car, are cops gonna come hammering on my door asking for proof that I owned the car they came out of?
Those concerns aside, I'm totally down with keeping some records of every transaction and making it accessible. One of my coworkers had his cat sawed out last month and it wasn't cheap to fix. There should be some recourse for responding to these crimes besides "Sorry, can't really do anything about it".
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;38517357]I hope this goes through smoothly. Methheads in Arizona have been known to steal metal cremation urns, and sell them for scrap.
... Why not just use wirecutters?[/QUOTE]
Would you really manually strip half inch think shielding off of [I]miles[/I] of copper wiring when you can just burn it all of at once?
These people want money, fast, with little effort.
Good, these people stole my sister's wheelchair from our front porch in literally the few minutes we left it outside to go back in the house and take her outside to sit in it and wait for the schoolbus. She missed like two months of school because she lost her only mode of transportation.
We have a nearly identical law that was passed here earlier. Most people are going by it but a fucknugget out in surrey and north Burnaby is still getting caught taking in stolen phone booths and obviously stolen metal fixtures and wire and he's making so much money out of it that he can pay the fine and keep on breaking the law and there's nothing to totally stop him.
I knew someone who had left their Iris Crimson left out in the car park for a few minutes and someone managed to drag that thing off. It's half the size of a fridge and weighs over 200 pounds bu that's all copper and gold.
Good, these fuckers have stolen thousands of dollars worth of metals off/out of the school buildings in the school system my dad works for.
Hopefully this will slow them down.
yay my hometown! :rock:
Ever since all the buildings and stores down by the Cleveland bay area closed down, its been a ghost town. Perfect place to find scrap. Especially if the steel mill is closed.
so you mean geel's scrap bank is regulated by ohio?
Years ago, I used to scrap a lot of copper out of abandoned buildings. It was hard work, but the profits were crazy. On a good day, I could make $120 for 40 minutes of work.
I had a bit of a moral code to it though. I would only scrap from decrepit or derelict buildings. If it was simply unused or temporarily abandoned, I wouldn't go near it. I wouldn't steal from people, as I do see a difference between looting derelicts and straight up thievery.
The people I used to scrap with started getting greedy, and began to break into sheds, stealing heavy duty power-tools, wires, and even stealing catalytic converters and such.
That was about the time I got out of the whole thing. Funny thing was a couple of them ended up getting caught months later and some even spent time behind bars for it.
PLEASE someone tell me they also see the potential TF2 joke here.
About fucking time.
[QUOTE=Ryu-Gi;38522210]PLEASE someone tell me they also see the potential TF2 joke here.[/QUOTE]
You're 2 posts late buddy.
[QUOTE=Kinglah Crab;38517439]remember the story about that entire bridge being stolen without anyone noticing
scrap metal thieves are fucking hardcore[/QUOTE]
any source on this?
[QUOTE=jason3232;38525997]any source on this?[/QUOTE]
Well you can see the revolution of scrap metal thefts here:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_theft[/url]
Some hardcore shit among the usual ordeals.
Dammit now where am I gonna sell all my copper wiring??
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