Johannesburg gripped by copper cable warfare
JOHANNESBURG: Tunnels coursing through the bowels of the earth under the city of Johannesburg contain precious treasure -- copper cables that are being stripped out
As in many other parts of the
A recent brazen theft knocked out power and plunged the central
It is estimated that nearly half of the power outages in the city are
Last month’s raid saw 32 kilo -
The damage was so severe that it took two-and-half days before technicians could safely navigate down the hot and smoky underground
Dangerous
The burglary tactics are shockingly - circuit which trips the power and allows them to tear the rest down
- -
They have organized themselves
While stolen copper was traditionally sold to scrap metal dealers -
The cables are melted into ingots making it virtually impossible for authorities to differentiate them from legitimately mined and pro
in copper cable heists are tied to the
percent in the last 18 months to
The stolen copper is usually traf -
- nel still reeks of burnt copper as electricians in gloves and rubber boots struggle to unfurl new rolls of
Sabotage
To clamp down on the pervasive the manholes leading to the tunnels and install smoke detectors -- at a
replace copper with less valuable
“The criminals who steal our cop
Businesses had no choice but to
- lost a third of his month revenue
A nearby internet cafe had to double fees to make up for the cost of running the generator and the result was “most of our customers have run
- one with information about the copper burglars quickly yielded
been arrested -- among them foreign nationals from India and
- nesburg metro police in September created a specialized copper crimebusting unit
But the war against copper theft is
In a suspected bribery case captured on video and released on were seen receiving cash and driving
the tunnels running underneath