The price of copper is pushing $4.05 per pound. The price of brass has been up since May. With prices of metals on the rise, scrap metals have become more popular to steal and sell back to recyclers.
Mike Hill is the retail crimes detective with the Boise Police Department. He say metal theft isn’t new.“We need to do a much better job of legislating and educating the scrappers that you’re dealing with an element here that is not above board and although it might behove them to buy this stuff from these people, in the long run it makes this little less livable community for us because they’re dealing with a criminal element,” he says.
Detective Hill says metal theft crime is reported several times weekly. Usually it involves wires stripped from construction sites or empty houses. This summer, the Boise Police Department has received reports of thieves taking cooper tubing from window air conditioning units.