"It sucks, we have to have these things to qualify for government funding and they cost about $1,200."Ĭhurches are favourite targets, according to Elkas, because of low security and a plethora of shiny objects made from copper, bronze and even gold. "These things are going left and right," he said. He said bronze plaques are flying off the cornerstones of heritage buildings all over Quebec, including his church. It was a rare case of an item's return, thanks to the honesty of a metal dealer and the bell's mix of metals that made it tough to melt down.Ĭhurch president Stephan Elkas says the theft was only the latest for the Plymouth-Trinity United Church.
Last month a massive bell was returned to a church in Sherbrooke, Que., after it had been stolen in a snowstorm. "Copper is heavy and a big power line has a lot of copper, so it doesn't take a lot of it to make a good dollar." "The price of copper has not stopped going up, overall," said Jacques Cossette, a buyer-trader at American Iron and Metal in Montreal. Hydro-Quebec says the toll reached $2.4 million last year. Power utilities from coast to coast have noted spikes in theft.
With a building boom in China, other metals have mirrored copper's rise and thieves are much more organized and will stop at nothing in the hunt to cash in.Ī few months ago a man in Montreal and another in British Columbia were electrocuted in separate incidents while trying to steal copper wires. Prices for copper - the key ingredient in most electrical wiring - are sky high, over US$3.50 per pound, just slightly down from last year's peak.Īuthorities around the world began noticing a spate of unusual, daring thefts last year, when the price first shot above US$2 per pound, or about half a kilogram, and kept climbing.įor years, the theft of copper wire and metal pipes was the preserve of inner-city drug addicts looking for money for a fix. Not shame, not charity - not even the threat of a 50,000-volt jolt - seem to stop thieves in their tireless quest to rip off high-priced metals. It's written out front on a donated sign that everything here is donated." "We were mighty discouraged that someone could do that. "We're surprised to see that thieves don't have hearts but I guess we shouldn't be," said Pierre Grothe, the volunteer who organized the construction of the home. Robbers recently stripped the half-finished building of most of its copper wiring, setting back the $2.3-million project being built with valuable donations and the sweat of volunteers. A home for Alzheimer's patients being built on generosity is the latest place to learn nothing is sacred to thieves trying to make a buck off pricey metals.
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