Police Confiscate Tonnes of Stolen Cable
Following a rash of thefts of cables while still attached to power and telephone lines, police yesterday confiscated some 20 tonnes of what appears stolen cables.

According to Jorge Rojas, director of the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ), his agents have been investigating a number of thefts that included the theft of cables at the Juan Santamaria (San José) airport that disabled communications between the San José, Pavas and Liberia control towers last month.

The stolen cable was found in two containers loaded with copper cable in front of a recycling plant in Cristo Rey.

Rojas said that there are two types of robberies, the first being perpetrated by indigents, who for the most part risk their lives climbing poles with live wires to steal what is at hand, and the other by an organized group who target specific locations. Anywhere from a few metres up to a kilometre have cable have been stolen from an number electrical and telephone installations.

Police say that in the last 2 years the theft has caused tens of thousands of dollars (millions of colones) in damages, not counting the inconvenience and danger caused by a missing cable, such as the case at the Juan Santamaria.

The OIJ director said that yesterday's confiscation is the largest on record and suspect that the trailers were being prepared for a shipment to Guatemala, where it would be smelted and possibly on its way to China, one the major consumers of copper.