Los Angeles
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Often strung from utility poles or buried beneath our ft, copper wire has performed a crucial position in powering America’s electrical grid for greater than a century.
But brazen thefts are threatening the grid, with thieves climbing onto automotive roofs to chop down phone strains or prying open manholes in broad daylight to strip copper wiring.
The results have been felt nationwide: roads and bridges going darkish, 911 calls that fail to attach and better utility payments as alternative prices get handed on to shoppers.
The value of copper has pushed the thefts, mentioned one detective on the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department who requested anonymity as a result of undercover nature of his position.
This yr, copper prices have reached all-time highs on a leap in new information heart building and hypothesis about new tariffs by the Trump administration, according to JPMorgan. In the United States, copper prices have climbed greater than 30% this yr.
Los Angeles has turn into one of many nation’s sizzling spots for copper wire theft. As the town recovers from its most destructive wildfires in a era and prepares to host the World Cup this summer season and the Olympics in 2028, it’s struggling in lots of locations simply to maintain the lights on. The metropolis and the utility firms spend hundreds of thousands every year repairing the injury.
There had been greater than 15,000 damaging assaults nationwide on home communication networks between June 2024 and June 2025, with copper theft a serious driver, according to the TV and web trade commerce group, NCTA. More than 9.5 million clients had been affected, with California and Texas alone accounting for over half of the incidents.
“This doesn’t happen just once a week or once a month,” the LASD detective mentioned of copper thefts. “These things happen daily.”
When Los Angeles unveiled its newly constructed Sixth Street Bridge in 2022, it was hailed as a brand new metropolis landmark. At night time, the three,500-foot bridge, with extensive pedestrian walkways, would mild up in shifting LED colours.
Three years later, the bridge sits darkish.
Thieves have stolen greater than 38,000 ft, or seven miles, of copper wire from the bridge, inflicting $2.5 million in injury, according to Mark González, the native assemblymember who represents the world.
“We have multiple incidents just in our areas each day. It adds up,” the undercover LASD detective mentioned, including that building websites in LA, the place properties are being rebuilt after January’s Palisades and Eaton wildfires claimed greater than 16,000 properties and constructions, are frequent targets for thieves.
It’s very arduous to hint stolen naked copper, the detective informed NCS. While some telecom firms use coloured paper coating to assist determine their wires, metropolis wiring is much less simply identifiable. Any repair can be costly for the town.
“For now, it’s kind of the Wild West,” the detective added.
The Sixth Street Bridge isn’t an remoted case. As copper prices climb, streetlight outages have turn into a persistent downside throughout Los Angeles. Theft- and vandalism-related outages increased tenfold between 2017 and 2022, in response to the town’s Bureau of Street Lighting.
In an announcement to NCS, a spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass referred to as copper wire theft “not just a nuisance, but a threat to public safety.”
“When Angelenos are left with dark lit streets, downed telecommunications wires or malfunctioning traffic signals, due to this dangerous criminal activity, people are left vulnerable and communities are at greater risk of other crimes,” the spokesperson mentioned, including that the town is pushing to put in extra solar-powered streetlights that aren’t wired with copper to curb the issue.
The detective mentioned that though thieves can typically get a pair hundred {dollars} for his or her stolen copper, it will probably value the town hundreds of {dollars} to restore the injury the thieves trigger.
“If we didn’t know that somebody was doing it for financial gain, we would probably assume it was a case of domestic terrorism,” as a result of quantity of destruction attributable to copper thieves, he mentioned.
In October, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a brand new invoice making an attempt to sort out copper wire theft by rising penalties and cracking down on junk sellers and recyclers who purchase stolen copper.
The state joins 12 others which have handed laws in 2025 to crack down on copper wire theft.
AT&T spends hundreds of thousands tackling copper theft
Just a brief drive from Los Angeles’ Exposition Park, the historic Olympic venue set to anchor occasions on the 2028 summer season video games, copper thieves pried open a manhole in the course of the road in January and tunneled into an AT&T facility that serves hundreds of space residents.
Hundreds of kilos of copper wire was lower and hauled out by means of the manhole, knocking out cellphone service for lots of of AT&T clients. The firm says it coated the opening with a 2,000-pound metal plate, however, by some means, thieves received in once more. By July, AT&T gave up on plates and sealed the manhole with concrete.
AT&T is racing to interchange its outdated copper community with sooner, extra environment friendly fiber-optic strains, however the transition can solely transfer as rapidly as clients resolve to modify cellphone plans.
Each of AT&T’s copper strands connects to a single family’s landline, and lots of of those hair-thin wires are bundled right into a single thick cable. Until each buyer migrates to fiber, AT&T has to maintain these copper connections stay, leaving miles of precious metallic within the floor or on poles and susceptible to theft.
“A lot of times they (thieves) don’t know what is copper versus fiber,” mentioned Jeff Luong, vp of engineering at AT&T. “So they’re just cutting cables,” inflicting additional service outage.
AT&T says copper wire thefts are rising sharply, reporting 2,200 incidents in California in 2024, up from 71 in 2021. The firm has since announced rewards of as much as $20,000 for data on the crimes.
Andrea Moore, a director of building and engineering at AT&T in Los Angeles, mentioned she typically visits native recyclers to trace down stolen wire. Some are cooperative, however she mentioned that some select to look the opposite method when shopping for stolen items.
Moore mentioned she will typically inform which recyclers are “bad actors” as a result of she’ll discover coating from AT&T cables disposed of proper outdoors these services. California’s new regulation, which takes impact subsequent yr, goals to carry these recyclers extra accountable.
AT&T executives say they’re continuously racing to remain a step forward, however too typically, they’re shedding. The firm shelled out greater than $60 million final yr on copper theft alone, in response to Susan Santana, AT&T’s California state president.
“Remember, it’s not just the $60 million impact to our bottom line,” Santana mentioned. “Think about the 911 calls that are not being made or the hospitals that can’t use their equipment because the internet is down.”