It might be funny, except it’s expensive. You run a business, a small theater maybe, and you need to air-condition it in warm weather. One warm day, you turn on the AC for your theater… and nothing happens.And then you discover no repairman can fix the problem. Because thieves climbed onto the roof of your building, opened up the AC system and tore out all the copper tubing. And you can’t just fix it because to get to the copper, the rest of the system was, well, trashed. So, you hope insurance will cover the costs to replace the entire system. That is exactly what happened to the 50-year-old Taproot Theatre in Seattle at the end of April as a production of Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin'” was near the end of its run.The theater produces six shows a year and is an important piece of Seattle’s theater scene.The cost to replace the AC units: a cool $130,000.A national, even global problemTaproot isn’t alone. Vandalism to strip out copper happens regularly in the United States and around the world. It is a side effect of the fact that copper, at least as bought and traded in futures markets, is now selling for $6.40 a pound in New York, up 185% just since 2020, when it sold for $2.23 a pound.Thieves, seeing a way to make quick buck, break into a building and tear out the copper, whether tubing or wiring. They sell their booty to recyclers, probably small, probably not well known, who may choose not to inquire how the copper was obtained. The problem is growing. How much is a guess, but the Internet and Television Association (NCTA, because it was once the National Cable and Telecommunications Association) put its guess at $294 million to $1.47 billion, just in 2025.And the damage caused to get to the actual copper was multiple times bigger than the value of the copper itself. Many thieves don’t seem to worry much about law enforcement because they know the police will try to solve murders and, say, bank robberies first.
Damage to air conditioning system at Seattle’s Taproot Theatre.Courtesy Taproot Theatre, Seattle
Low barrier to entryMost of the time, the thievery is simple.Consider: Very early on the morning of June 27, a man was stopped on the West Seattle bridge in Seattle with four coils of copper wire and some heavy wire cutters. He told a police officer he worked for Seattle City Light, the municipal utility, and was fixing a problem. There was, in fact, no problem on the bridge. The 47-year-old man didn’t work for the utility. The man was arrested and charged, then failed to appear for arraignment. So, there’s an arrest warrant out for him, said Douglas Wagoner, legislative director for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Related: The ultimate AI proxy trade isn’t a tech stock—It’s something more humbleThe bridge and its wiring, however, are exposed and hit repeatedly, The Seattle Times noted.So are old street lights in downtown Los Angeles. In early 2024, Wired reported, a country radio station in Oklahoma saw the height of its 499-foot transmission tower cut by more than half so thieves could remove the copper wire. Two young men were arrested and sentenced to jail terms. Value of their haul: $100.Telecommunications giant AT&T (T) says it suffered some 10,400 copper theft incidents in 2025 alone — about 200 a week, most of it inCalifornia. But only 3% of its phone customers use copper phone lines. AT&T would like to get rid of all copper wiring to all its California customers, but local opposition is thwarting the idea. So, AT&T is doing the American thing. It’s suing. A crime committed by young menMost of the vandalism is done by men 25 or younger. Most are underemployed or unemployed. Many have criminal records. Drugs are involved in most Seattle-area copper theft, says Wagoner of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office. Sometimes, however, a theft goes horribly awry. Two men were killed in April 2023 trying to steal copper wiring from an electric power substation in Gainesville, Ga., CBS News reported.Is organized crime involved?AT&T believes organized crime increasingly is involved. “In many major metropolitan areas and small towns, copper theft has escalated to levels that can only be described as systemic,” Rahdeese Calcutt, lead investigator at AT&T Global Security, wrote in an April blog post. In March, Portland, Ore., law enforcement charged five people with copper theft, according to KPTV. One of the five was a woman who allegedly acted as a broker. She would take in stolen copper and sell it to legitimate recyclers.More Natural resources:The ultimate AI proxy trade isn’t a tech stock—It’s something more humbleJefferies joins Barclays in backing major gold minerAfter the bubble: Why UBS is still a gold-and-silver fanIn June, Illinois authorities found a trailer loaded with $300,000 in copper wire. The trailer had been stolen in Alabama.Is there a fix to the problem? Stiffer penalties would help, businesses say. But a bill supported by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office went nowhere in the 2026 Washington State Legislative Session. The bill would boost jail time and require all recyclers to photograph copper they take in and upload the photos to a database. There will be a new effort in the 2027 session, Wagoner told theStreet. For Taproot, the show could go onIn the case of the Taproot Theatre, sadly, there have been no arrests in the case. But there is a happy ending. An insurance claim is pending for the damages to its air-conditioning system. Meanwhile, an emergency fund drive raised $450,000, and the theatre was able to replace the two destroyed units.The entire system is now encased in a metal cage, the Puget Sound Business Journal noted.The 226-seat theatre was able to produce “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” as scheduled and announced it would extend the run by two weeks.Related: White House’s sweeping Canada tariffs put US prices at risk