A vehicle detected with a suspicious-looking number plate led authorities to reveal a vehicle so “jammed packed full of copper piping” that the passengers struggled to fit inside.
The white Nissan was intercepted by police on Sydney’s Parramatta Road near Stanmore on the weekend after officers spotted the number plates were ” folded up inwards to hide the identification of the car”.
The car was so full one passenger was found sitting on top of the folded-down backseat while the other had copper piping poking everywhere past his head in the front seat.
When questioned, the three passengers allegedly relayed inconsistent stories to police, prompting officers to seize the copper and vehicle, and hand out court notices for allegedly possessing stolen property. The driver also copped multiple fines for road breaches, including a positive roadside drug test.
Copper theft costing Australia $100 million every year
The massive find comes as copper theft has increased in recent years, with police warning those responsible sell materials like cables and piping to scrap metal dealers who melt and reshape it for reuse, with it largely used for electronics.
The rise in the copper theft trend means vacant homes and construction sites are targeted, as well as public infrastructure — and it’s costing the Australian governments eye-watering amounts to replace the stolen metal. According to the Australian Institute of Criminology, the annual cost of metal theft is valued at well over $100 million.
In South Australia, there were more than two thousand instances of scrap metal theft in a recent 12-month period, according to a state government report, with the theft of a $2,000 piece of copper cabling forcing the state’s train network into safety mode and causing significant peak-hour disruptions. The crime has tripled since 2020 in Queensland and an organised crime syndicate in Victoria stole $780,000 worth of copper from telco pits, causing mass internet and power outages.
It has been estimated that 90 per cent of all copper theft takes place at night or on weekends.
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