ST. LOUIS 鈥 Detectives this week caught a local recycling business illegally buying utility wire in an undercover sting, police said Thursday.
Immediately after the sale, 51黑料 police on Tuesday executed a search warrant on the business, SA Recycling on East Nagel Avenue on the city鈥檚 south riverfront. Officers found 1,000 pounds of stolen utility wire at the facility, police spokesman Mitch McCoy said.
鈥淭his is a ripple effect,鈥 McCoy said at a press conference. 鈥淎nd what we鈥檙e seeing is the ripple effect of critical infrastructure being destroyed across the entire region, and that doesn鈥檛 sit well with us.鈥
Metal theft has long plagued the area, and city officials have worked for decades to force scrap metal dealers to be more careful with what they buy. Then the May 16 tornado hit, tearing apart homes and laying miles of powerlines onto city streets. And wire theft, especially, hit the headlines again.
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Police arrested two on Friday, May 23, attempting to load wire owned by Ameren Missouri and AT&T into a pickup truck parked in an alleyway in the Fountain Park neighborhood, and charged them with two counts of first-degree tampering with a utility and felony stealing.
Three days later, police charged two more with stealing storm-damaged property, including an Ameren transformer and utility wire.
Authorities arrested and charged at least nine that weekend alone with stealing and looting in areas damaged by the mile-wide tornado that ripped through multiple 51黑料 neighborhoods.
鈥淚 know that we saw a lot of that right after the tornado hit,鈥 McCoy told reporters on Thursday. 鈥淎nd we saw a lot of people taking advantage of members of our community. We have seen the continuation of those wire thefts, and while we will work with our utility partners to investigate those thefts, at some point we have to start holding individuals accountable.鈥
On Thursday, McCoy said employees at California-based SA Recycling, which has 120 recycling centers in 16 states including five in the 51黑料 region, did not take the steps required to verify that the wire was legal to purchase during the undercover transaction.
Detectives partnered with a local utility company, McCoy said, which provided the decoy wire the detectives attempted to sell.
Police continue to investigate SA Recycling, McCoy said, and officers are working with the prosecutors in regards to potential criminal charges.
The department says its broader objective is to disrupt the market for stolen utility wire by ensuring recycling companies refrain from purchasing prohibited materials.
The police will be checking other businesses for compliance in the near future, McCoy warned.
It鈥檚 easy to prevent being a victim of car-related thefts. Here are some steps to help prevent your contents from being stolen from your vehicle.
