Police investigate buyers, sellers as metal is snatched by the fistful

Ken Thode says he is not a thief, even though he was caught ripping out a mile and a half of copper wire from a state highway project under construction near Auburn last month.

Thode sees himself as an environment-friendly opportunist. Armed with wire cutters and an electrical continuity tester, he claims he made $200 a day selling "scrap metal" to recyclers who asked few questions.

"It's really amazing you can dig up this metal that's worth so much money," said Thode, a fisherman from Puyallup.

Apparently Thode is not alone: A rash of metal thefts plaguing road projects, home builders, telephone and power companies, even railroads, is escalating from nuisance to scourge.

Based on police and news accounts, it is estimated that millions of dollars have been stolen statewide in the past six months. Stadium goalposts, guard rails, light poles, sculptures, even a 3,000-pound brass propeller taken from a front yard, have disappeared. The state Department of Transportation alone estimates $115,000 in losses since November. Phones in West Seattle briefly went dead late last month after thieves struck.

In a search for culprits, police and state lawmakers are looking just as hard at the buyers of scrap metal as they are at the thieves themselves. Without unscrupulous recycling yards paying quick cash, police say, wire thieves would lose their main buyers.

Stung by bad publicity, legitimate recyclers are cooperating with police and offering tips about suspect customers and other recyclers. But the owners of recycling yards, which number about 35 in the Puget Sound area, have also lobbied hard in Olympia against a bill passed by the House last week that bans cash sales bigger than $30 and delays all payment for 10 days.

Recycling bills in Olympia

Proposals to crack down on metal theft (House ESB 1251, Senate SB 5312) would require recyclers to hold items they believe to be stolen, delay payment on most sales for 10 days, require more documentation for sales and stiffen criminal penalties. The House bill was passed last week; the Senate bill is being considered.

Rep. Dawn Morrell, a sponsor of one bill, said her phone line was flooded earlier in the session with irate recyclers.

"I didn't understand why the recyclers weren't stepping forward to be a hero here," said Morrell, D-Puyallup. "Their excuses were pretty amazing. I keep wondering, 'Why can't you be part of the solution?' "

Sorting out what is stolen, and who is buying, however, is a problem that bedevils police and the industry.

"It's just frustrating," said Jay Sternoff, vice president of Pacific Iron and Metal, a large recycler in Seattle. "They [police] want us to ask every person, where is their source of material. The response is always that it came from grandpa's garage who died five years ago. The [sellers, or scrappers] don't want us to know, for fear we'd go around them. And the thieves lie."

The rash of thefts is driven by a spike in copper prices — due in part to demand from builders in China — and, police believe, thieves seeking money to feed drug habits.

Last month, Thode became a poster child for brazen wire thefts, police say. He was arrested at 3:30 a.m. after being spotted wearing an orange safety vest and hard hat near a state job site where wire had been ripped out of electrical junction boxes. After being released from jail, he was arrested again this month with a van full of copper wire that police deemed suspicious.

He said the wire found in his van was scraps that were part of a DOT demolition project. "I'm ignorant of what I could take and could not take," he said. "If you find a $100 bill on the ground, can you take it or are you supposed to leave it there?"

The Washington State Patrol's answer: Thode is expected to be charged this week with possession of stolen property.

Goalposts for sale

In late January, a customer called Brad Rinker's recycling yard on North Aurora offering to sell aluminum football goalposts, allegedly salvaged from the Kingdome.

It struck Rinker as absurd: He had salvaged all the metal from the Kingdome, which was demolished in 2000. And Seattle police had alerted recyclers that goalposts had been stolen from West Seattle Stadium.

"I've been in this business 30 years and have seen thieves," said Rinker, owner of NW Metals and Salvage. "But what's different now is how blatant they are."

The thefts come as the recycling industry in Washington is booming. Since 2002, recycling of copper and aluminum has quadrupled, to 122,000 tons a year. Recycled iron also has quadrupled, to 975,000 tons annually.

Rinker buys mostly from individual scrappers, then bundles loads and sells to larger yards, which in turn sell to smelters. That makes it impossible to track stolen metals once they make it into a scrap yard, said Seattle Police Detective Sam DeJesus, who is investigating a series of metal thefts.

"It's not like the typical crime where someone steals a stereo, which can be tracked via serial number," he said. "These items are, for all purposes, innocuous. There's no way to identify wire stolen from a telephone pole once it gets to a recycler."

Police also have found evidence that thieves are using staging areas — the wire-theft version of a chop shop — to strip wire and melt down metal into unrecognizable form.

Aiming for cash sales

Since 1971, recyclers have been required to take down sellers' driver's license numbers and vehicle plates. Seattle and other police agencies also circulate "no-buy" lists of people convicted of property-related crimes.

It's not a foolproof system. Serious thieves use aliases. And recyclers, including Rinker, admit they haven't always checked the no-buy list. "To me, this whole issue is overblown," he said of metal thefts.

The bills in Olympia take aim at thieves seeking a quick buck, banning unauthorized sales of such items as manhole covers, beer kegs and guard rails, and requiring payment to be held for 10 days. The bills allow recyclers to be criminally charged and fined up to $2,000 for a second violation.

Sternoff, of Pacific Iron, says the payment restrictions are poorly conceived and could lead to a drop in recycling. "We are a very large industry that has perhaps contributed more to reducing greenhouse gases than any other industry," he said. "We don't want to go backward."

Police and recyclers have a common complaint, though: weak criminal sentences.

Last year, four people were caught stealing 15 miles of copper wire worth $190,000 from a railroad bed in Grant County. That caused 30 trains to be delayed over 10 days, according to railroad police. Despite the damage, three of the thieves got just a month in jail, which was then suspended. A fourth, who had a criminal record, got four months.

One job site, three thefts

In December, Everett Builders, a family-owned contractor, was nearly finished with a 2,400-square-foot duplex near Arlington. The night before drywall was hung, thieves ripped out half the wiring.

The contractor installed deadbolt locks, 6-foot fences, heat and motion sensors. But thieves struck twice more, taking the rest of the wiring, then stealing construction equipment. Total loss: $12,000.

Everett Builders eventually hired nighttime security, at a cost of $18 an hour, said co-owner Pat Mann.

"We're starting our 50th year in business, and we've never ever experienced a theft and never had to report to our insurance company," said Mann. "Three thefts in the space of a month for one project is incredible."

Thode, the metal scavenger caught at the DOT job site last month, said his career, for now, is on hold. He believes he is on a "no-buy" list and doesn't want to test his luck.

"I'm kind of embarrassed to leave the house," he said.

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com