The world is connected by copper. It's a huge target for thieves

An AT&T crew installs a new cable at a railroad crossing in Hayward, Calif., after the segment got cut down by suspected copper wire thieves. John Ruwitch/NPR hide caption

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HAYWARD, Calif. – In an industrial yard off a highway east of San Francisco, AT&T workers crowd around cold, hard evidence of a growing problem.

"Sitting here [is] a truck full of what is stolen copper cable," says Todd Swensen, from AT&T's construction and engineering division. The jumble of cables and wires, about the size of a truck tire, was recovered from a metal recycler. Swensen says that cable actually belongs to AT&T, and was cut down from telephone poles by thieves.

Over the past few years, there has been an alarming rise in copper wire theft in the United States and beyond. The value of copper has roughly doubled in the past year, thanks in part to increasing demand for the metal. So thieves strip it from phone lines, as well as from other infrastructure like streetlamps and EV chargers. Repairs cost companies and communities, vex corporate executives and politicians and tax work crews.

Swensen says record-high prices of copper — buoyed, in part, by the artificial intelligence data center boom — are to blame. "The higher the price of copper is at a recycler and on the market, our theft goes up. Direct correlation there," he says.

This pile of wires might fetch a few hundred dollars at a recycler. But Swensen says the damage could cost the company tens of thousands of dollars to repair.

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AT&T executives have grown frustrated with the problem, which is why they've invited NPR on a ride-along to see it firsthand. So we caravan to a railroad crossing, where at 3:40 in the morning, an alarm had gone off alerting the company that cables had been cut down from nearby telephone poles.

The company suspected the work of thieves.

"What they typically do is they cut the cable down, they'll pull it to a location and they start working on stripping it," says Scott Gonzaga, also with AT&T. "Then they burn it to get the sheath off and to get it down to the bare copper." That metal is sold to a middleman or directly to a recycler.

We arrive at the tracks a little before noon, and the aftermath of the crime comes into focus.

The phone and internet cables that should have stretched over the track are gone. A pair of bolt cutters lies in the dirt, along with bits of rubber and plastic stripped from the wires. Down a trail by the train line, there's a string of freshly charred spots in the dirt — what the AT&T crew call "burn pits." An abandoned tent overflows with clothes and junk, and behind it lies a small pile of wires.

In the distance, down the path, there's something else: people.

There are two of them, about 100 yards away, pushing what looks like a large plastic laundry bin.

"This is a first," says Michael Riensch, who oversees efforts to combat copper wire theft at AT&T's global security unit. "We just happened to be here while subjects were on scene."

Gonzaga says he saw one of the two people by a burn pit when he showed up.

"We tried to follow him a little bit just to get a picture of him," Gonzaga says.

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The two people with the cart don't seem to be fleeing, exactly. But they are staying out of reach of the AT&T crew. And the crew is keeping its distance, too.

They've already called the police, who are on their way.

Locked-down manhole lids

Last year, AT&T recorded more than 10,400 incidents of copper wire theft nationwide — about 200 a week. Some 7,000 of those were in California.

It's an outsized problem for the company, since only about 3% of AT&T's customers are still connected by copper wire networks. That includes households without access to cell service or fiber optic connections, some in rural areas, as well as some businesses that still rely on old wires for internet or fax connections.

Copper cables, pioneered over 180 years ago by Samuel Morse, often hang next to their modern counterparts, fiber optic lines. When thieves cut cables for copper, they often slice fiber cables, too, because they look similar. A snipped fiber cable is what tripped this alarm.

AT&T crew members walk by a "burn pit" near a site where cables were cut. John Ruwitch/NPR hide caption

Susan Santana, president of AT&T West, is on the ride-along. She says homes, hospitals, airports, schools and more can lose connections when cables are cut. The problem is "not an easy one to solve, by any means," she says, but AT&T is trying.

"We have locked down manhole lids with extra bolts. We've put sensors across our lines. In some instances we've had to hire private security guards," Santana says.

AT&T has also offered a $20,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people involved in copper cable thefts.

The problem is not limited to telephone wires. Thieves have been cutting electric cables, too. The California city of San Jose has an online tracker for streetlights that have gone dark after being hit.

EV chargers are also targets. Rick Wilmer, CEO of ChargePoint, the largest charging network in the United States, says it's a problem they deal with every day. He says he got so frustrated that he started prototyping solutions on his own.

"I was so motivated I literally was going down to Home Depot and buying all kinds of different wire and Kevlar and stuff, and wrapping cables and taping it down and trying to cut it with my own pruning shears to see if it was, you know, making it any more difficult," he says.

He handed the project off to company engineers, who developed charger cables that are impregnated with cut-resistant material. The idea, he says, is that a thief might be able to hack off one of those wires, but their shears will be damaged in the process. They won't be able to hit multiple chargers in one go.

Sharing intel, engaging in surveillance

Back at the railroad crossing, the police have arrived. They've sat the two people with the cart down on the track's embankment and are questioning them.

Police walk down a train line at the scene of cut AT&T wires. John Ruwitch/NPR hide caption

In California, copper thieves face up to three years in prison and hefty fines. The state recently tightened regulations on scrap metal dealers, and bills in the state legislature would raise the penalties for organized copper wire theft and individuals holding wire without proof of ownership.

Rob Bonta, the state's attorney general, says enforcement is key. "The science shows that if people think they will be caught for committing a crime, then that deters them from committing a crime. Even if the punishment is high, but they don't think they're going to get caught, they'll still commit the crime," he says.

He says authorities have been using a playbook of cross-jurisdiction collaboration that previously helped the state tamp down catalytic converter theft and a rash of smash-and-grab robberies at retail stores.

"We started teaming up and engaging [in] investigations, sharing intel, engaging in surveillance. A lot of what worked there is working here," he says.

"So, more participation, more resources, more focus, more dedication, more prioritization by law enforcement agencies, who have a lot to prioritize," he adds. "These are folks that are tackling — you know, murders and rapes and robberies and other important crimes, too."

A frustrating pattern

AT&T also has a longer-term solution in mind: The company wants to move on from its aging copper wire networks, shifting all of its phone service to fiber optics.

Once a monopoly, AT&T is considered the state's "carrier of last resort." Santana says that means it is required to keep copper running in order to serve that tiny fraction of customers who still use it — despite a range of new technologies and offerings from competitors.

"In an ideal world, California would find a way to help us transition, would identify a pathway to transition from maintaining a copper legacy network to allowing us to invest our resources into fiber and wireless, which is what most of the other states in this country have already done," she says.

Susan Santana, president of AT&T West, stands by a path along a railroad in Hayward, Calif., where cables were cut. John Ruwitch/NPR hide caption

In late May, AT&T filed a lawsuit against California to allow it to discontinue its legacy copper wire-based phone service in line with Federal Communications Commission authorization to phase it out. The company has pledged $19 billion to modernize the network through 2030.