Creative Security Blog

Copper Theft Alert: The Snitch Catches Copper Thieves in the Act

For the past several years, CSC has protected many of the Bay Area's largest commercial companies from sustaining any job site theft at all with our wireless burglar alarm system called "The Snitch."

During the previous 18 months or so, copper thefts had been slowing declining in the Bay Area. However, according to many local Bay Area police departments, copper thefts are again on the rise and vacant commercial buildings are once again prime targets for thieves to attack.

Case in point, just this week, an attempted copper theft incident occurred at a CSC client's building in Fremont. That building is protected by The Snitch, which helped catch the thieves in the act and prevented any theft from occurring at the client's location.

Specifically, two suspects broke into the vacant building in broad daylight with the intent of stealing copper metal and steel piping from the walls and corral areas - potentially costing the client tens of thousands of dollars. The moment the burglars made entry into the building, The Snitch system alerted the CSC security team and a CSC officer responded to the scene within 15 minutes.  Once on-scene, the CSC officer observed the thieves cutting the copper and steel piping with bolt cutters and loading it onto a flatbed truck. CSC immediately alerted local Fremont PD and the suspects were arrested on-site.

One suspect admitted to police that the stolen items in the truck were removed from a vacant commercial building in Hayward earlier that day. After finding two receipts in the suspect's pockets, the police further determined the suspects had stopped off at two recycling centers along the way and sold some stolen product between Hayward and Fremont.

Following this incident, CSC reported the details to a local Federal Task Force called REACT that we work closely with. REACT specializes in high tech and metal theft crimes and will use the info we provided to determine a possible connection with any other incidents in the past with a similar method of operation.  

This is just one recent account of the very real threats that copper thieves can present to vacant commercial buildings. CSC's Snitch security program can effectively stop these security threats and prevent thefts from occurring at our client's sites. To date, The Snitch has earned a 100% success rate in protecting our client's properties against copper and metal theft, and as a result, we've been able to reduce our client's security costs by as much as $10k/mo, while helping them keep insurance premiums low and increase profits.

Currently, no other Bay Area security company offers any service that matches our Snitch Security Program - and compared to security guard services that can cost thousands of dollars each month, The Snitch can oftentimes provide peace of mind for a fraction of cost. For more info on how the Snitch can protect your business, contact CSC today.