Coded wires, special paints help track thieves as utilities fight to protect assets
BY JEFFRY SCOTT AND TY TAGAMI, STAFF WRITERS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Updated: 07-7-2011 10:10 am
As copper thieves have grown bolder --- with Atlanta police reporting 150 incidents in June alone --- so have efforts to thwart the crime wave that has soared along with the price of the metal.
It's difficult for investigators to pin down where stolen metal originated, so the cases are hard to prosecute. One filched air conditioning coil or spool of copper wire looks like any other.
Without positive identification by the victim, prosecutors can't win. "They won't even take it to court," said Joe Bulat, co-chairman of the Southeast Metal Task Force, a clearinghouse for information on metal thefts.
A Carrollton-based company is using new technology to fight back. Southwire, North America's largest manufacturer of wire and cable, has given prosecutors evidence they've used successfully in court: etching copper wire with a unique code, which for prosecutors is the equivalent of fingerprints on a crime weapon.
Other companies are identifying their copper wiring through the use of paint, though that can be removed by solvent.
Since 2003, the price of copper has gone from around 70 cents to about $4 per pound. Theft of the metal has become a nuisance across metro Atlanta, especially as the recession has left a growing number of big buildings empty.
"It's a pretty big problem," said Patrick Laughlin, an Atlanta commercial real estate agent. He routinely sees buildings stripped of copper from conduits or air conditioning units.
A building Laughlin sold in November had suffered $125,000 in wiring theft before the sale, he said. Then, after the sale, the building was hit again. He said the loss the second time was $200,000.
In Lithonia, Laughlin said, someone swiped the copper wiring from a transformer and wrote on it: "Thanks for the copper." The message was signed: "The A Team."
When a Georgia Power technician came to fix the transformer, Laughlin asked him about copper theft. The technician responded with a laugh. "He said, 'This is Tuesday and this is my sixth call this week.'"
Nationwide, utilities have been hardest hit by metal theft, losing about $1 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Last year, Georgia Power lost about $500,000 to wire theft, spokeswoman Carol Boatright said, and the number of thefts this year --- about 70 --- is on pace with last year.
Utilities are fighting back. In January, the industry increased its reward from $500 to $3,000 for information leading to copper theft conviction and pressed prosecutors to charge thieves with more serious crimes.
Two years ago utilities got the Georgia General Assembly to pass a law that holds metal thieves accountable for the damage they cause, meaning they may have stolen $100 worth of copper wire, but the cost to reinstall it could be in the tens of thousands. That makes for stiffer penalties.
Sellers of metal must present valid identification, and that record must be kept by recyclers. Yet tracking down copper thieves is still a challenge, said Tom Gillis, an investigator with the Avondale Estates Police Department.
In June someone cut piping from five air conditioning units at a Head Start school in Avondale Estates, disabling the units and spewing refrigerant into the air. "The kids were in there, and when they turned the units on that stuff started coming out," Gillis said.
He said the school likely would have to replace the air conditioners, which were worth far more than the piping.
He added that it would take a lot of investigative work to catch the thieves.
"The problem is, the metals that they're taking don't have serial numbers and they're not stamped with company names," Gillis said, "so they're easily fenceable."
That's where identifiable wire like Southwire's new etched Proof Positive Copper comes in. Southwire stores purchase records for each foot sold and makes the information available online.
Southwire said its laser-etched wire costs more than regular wire but wouldn't say how much more.
Georgia Power has tried Proof Positive, and Boatright said it's assisted in some of the 25 theft cases this year that led to arrests.
It's a sign of the times that the first time Georgia Power installed it at a substation, it was stolen within two weeks. But the wire was identified when the thief showed up at a local metal recycler. He was arrested two weeks later, then prosecuted and convicted.
The security week that was: 07/08/11 (Boom times for guard services)
A weekly surveillance of the news shaping your profession
BY GEOFF KOHL, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
SecurityInfoWatch.com
Updated: 07-8-2011 1:27 pm
Security guards aren't going away anytime soon. That's the gist of a UN report which noted that the number of private security officers worldwide is roughly double the number of sworn law enforcement officers. In my own little slice of America, I can tell you anecdotally that I have seen an increased use of professional security officers at the local banks and large retailers, but what the UN report points to is a greater trend toward outsourcing of former police functions to security officers.
A few weeks ago in this weekly column, I discussed the quality of security officers available today, as evidenced by the use of high-end officer services at a corporate headquarters I toured. Part of that trend I believe can be attributed to massive mergers in the guard services industry. As these companies have become larger and as the number of officers increases worldwide, the premier companies have had to really focus on high-quality training to differentiate their security officers from their competitors' officers. The type of security officer today is not the Barney Fife of yesteryear. Step into the "On Guard" world inside the SecurityInfoWatch forums and you'll see the level of interest that today's security officers take in their duties. Sure, we will always face the instances of the poorly trained and unmotivated amongst our industry's ranks, but I think the heightened competition in the marketplace is steadily driving a wedge between two parts of the guard services industry. There's a very visible line of division between the low-end, barely-a-guard type of guard, and the always-on-point, superbly trained guard.
But it's not always sunny in the guard services world. The UN report notes that one side effect of high growth in the security guard services world has been that regulatory processes for the industry have not kept up with the growth in officer numbers. The industry, if it is going to preserve what I see as a movement toward higher quality services, will need to self-regulate if the state cannot implement that process.
The UN report also calls us to question the often-assumed line of thought that as we implement more automated security devices -- intrusion and access control systems, motion detection and video analytics-enabled security cameras -- we would see a shrinking need for the living, breathing security guard. If anything, these automated systems are moving officers out of the monitor rooms and into public side of facilities and campus environments, and that, I think, is a good thing for the overall security presence of any corporation or agency.
Stakeholders, what stakeholders?
As one project forgets a key stakeholder, another organization reaches out to its key constituents
At our Secured Cities conference held this past May in Atlanta (our next one is in Baltimore), one of the key points of discussion was the importance of involving all stakeholders when developing a government-owned surveillance system. Apparently, the Delhi International Airport Limited didn't receive the memo. A report from The Pioneer newspaper in India notes that the airport's own police force wasn't involved in recent decisions to expand the airport-area surveillance system, despite the fact that the airport police was, in reality, the end-user of the video for forensic and response purposes. I'll let this little story out of India be a warning to any of you planning a security upgrade: Don't forget your constituents.
Speaking of stakeholders and airport security, the Transportation Security Administration is re-establishing the Aviation Security Advisory Committee. The committee will be comprised of members from the aviation, law enforcement and security industries. The committee was initially established following the terror attack to Pan Am 103 in 1989, but had since been disbanded. The goal of the committee is to provide planning advice and feedback to the TSA regarding security procedures.
In other news
Proposing metal detectors at hospitals, Fighting copper theft, Drone strike gets Al Qaeda leader
A shooting at a Florida hospital has renewed discussion as to whether metal detectors are needed at emergency department ingress points. … Honeywell named a new CIO. … Georgia-based Southwire is one company using a new technology that could help reduce copper thefts (or at least catch the perpetrators). … A drone strike in Pakistan this past June is said to have killed a top Al Qaeda leader. … London police are taking ownership of completed 2012 Olympic venues and are already conducting anti-terror sweeps to secure those newly built venues. … Xtralis has acquired HeiTel Digital Video, allowing the company to significantly expand into remote video monitoring.
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