We are used to hearing how kilometres of copper wire is being stolen and sold for scrap, but now thieves have even turned to  stealing metal crash barriers from the roads.

Precisely because whole streets have found themselves without any lighting thanks to the cable being stolen, the Guardia Civil intensified their surveillance on both the scrap-copper trade, as well as probably ‘targets,’ which in the past have included sports pavilions and whole sections of the Granada by-pass. Scrap yards are now obliged to inform the police when they receive copper, for instance.

This police pressure has lead thieves to ‘branch out,’ so now sections of rail track have gone missing on the Guadix-Almendricos line, which is not in use. In fact, the company that maintains train tracks (Adifs) is in the top three of companies reporting theft of material in Granada.

Now the target is road crash barriers, with the first case being reported near Calicasas; the tendency appears to have begun in Cádiz and Málaga but it is now firmly established in Granada.

But copper is still ‘attractive’ to metal thieves as it is worth around 6,250 euro a tonne on the London Metal Exchange.

(News: Granada, Andalucia)