Complaints for copper theft have shot 87% since 2019 | Spain

Copper theft and other conductive metals It is a crime on the rise. The statistics of the Ministry of Interior collect that the number of complaints investigated by the National Police and the Civil Guard for the theft of this metal and other conductive materials has increased 87% in the last six years after passing 2,367 cases in 2019 to 4,433 cases last year. That is to say, An average of 12 thefts a day. These figures are actually an approach, because they do not collect the events of these characteristics registered in the Basque Country and Catalonia, where Ertzaintza and Mossos d’Esquadra have transferred police powers. In fact, Catalonia leads from far the statistics of this type of robberiessince in 2023 he accumulated more complaints (5,372) than in the rest of Spain as a whole (more than 4,000).

By autonomous communities-exchanges Catalonia and the Basque Country, whose data is not reflected in Interior Statistics-last year was Castilla-La Mancha (where the robbery in the Madrid-Sevilla high speed line has occurred precisely This Sunday caused the collapse of the rail service) The one that leads them, with 799 complaints. The Andalusia (745), Madrid (678) and Castilla y León (428). The rest of the communities are below 300 complaints. The statistics of detained and investigated people also collect this upward trend, with 987 involved in 2024 compared to 420 of 2019.

This increase has an explanation, according to police sources: copper is one of the most wanted metals for its high price. This already clean stolen material – without plastic coating – can be sold in the black market at a price close to six euros per kilo. However, prices range according to its price in markets. For example, in the days prior to theft in Toledo this weekend, its price in the London metal bag was above 9,300 euros a ton … and going up. A police report acknowledges that, « in general, the greater the price of copper or bronze in the market, greater increase in theft/robberies is committed. »

The Minister of Transportation, Óscar Puente, affected Monday in an interview in the SER chain that this Sunday’s robbery, which described as « sabotage », was not « something so simple, or so easy » and that I requiso « a logistics that does not have anyone. » However, police reports point out that metal theft in rail infrastructure, although they are committed by “organized groups” whose members, in high percentage, have a history of similar facts, you usually need only cutting tools such as shear, axes, radials or easily obtained pliers.

A agent specialized in fighting this type of crime highlights that the material authors of these thefts are, in many occasions, the lowest step of crime. « These types of subtractions usually do it at night schedules with preparatory activities and group organization, » collects a police report that highlights that, for example, the van in which they are usually displaced to the place of theft to load the stolen material usually go with the hidden license plates to prevent recordings of video surveillance circuits can facilitate their identification. In some cases, they can try to impeach operators, but police sources insist that these are the least

Once with the copper cable in their possession in a safe place, the thieves burn it to melt the plastic that has it and that usually carries a serial number that could give them away. Then they take him to scrap or companies in the sector that, supposedly, know the illicit origin of the material and pay them a lower price in the market. The agents consulted emphasize that, therefore, it is key to take criminals when they are committing the robbery because, if not, many times they can only be charged with a crime of reception.

It happened, for example, in January 2022 in Aragon, when two people were arrested aboard a van in which they transported between 300 and 500 kilos of copper cable allegedly stolen shortly before the high speed Madrid-Barcelona line at the height of Jalón (Zaragoza). Justice finally condemned them to only one year and three months in jail for receiving stolen material because they could not demonstrate that they were the authors of theft.