According to Jansen, the highest prices are for copper from cables. “If you deliver it clean, so without casing, it will yield 8 euros per kilo. These are also cables that are stolen along the track, for example. But they have Prorail neatly engraved on them. If that is discovered at your company, you are really screwed.”
Metal trader Huizinga from Peize does not call copper theft from churches very lucrative. “The damage is actually always greater than the profit. If you demolish the gutter of a church, then you are really talking about tenner’s work. I really wouldn’t take such a step.”
But where do these consignments of stolen copper ultimately end up? “Not with us,” say the two metal recyclers from Coevorden and Peize firmly. An identification requirement should prevent recycling companies from unknowingly becoming involved in shady practices.
“We certainly check the people who supply copper. They have to show their ID card. Most of them can easily justify themselves and if it is waste from a renovation, you can often see it. But as soon as people do not want to show their ID, then you already know that something is wrong,” says Patrick Huizinga.
Johan Jansen has the same approach in Coevorden, where you cannot deliver without identification. “Our family business has been around for decades, we know all the ins and outs of the industry. Plumbers, farmers, private individuals come to us with their metals. The people who sleep during the day and are involved in other practices at night generally do not come here.”
Yet questionable copper suppliers sometimes show up in Peize and Coevorden. “Then as a company you have an obligation to report to the police, in which case I write down the license plate number,” says Huizinga. “For example, I had a customer who wanted seven euros for the copper, but when I asked for identification, he refused. Without the ID, I was allowed to buy it for half the money, yes, then you know it is not right.”
Johan Jansen also says that he often senses when something is not right. “Sometimes I have a strange feeling about it. If people don’t want to show identification or come up with strange stories that they will bring their ID the next day, then you know that things are not right.” According to Jansen, this sometimes results in curses or threats.
“These types of consignments often end up at trading companies. Official metal recycling companies are strictly monitored, but that happens a lot less at trading companies and I think that is a bad thing,” reports metal man Huizinga. Jansen also thinks it is an unfair situation: “There should be stricter controls on companies that do not follow the rules so closely.”
How can building owners protect themselves against copper thieves? The metal recyclers do not have the solution. Jansen suggests: “Perhaps more camera surveillance?” Huizinga sees little point in this: “Camera surveillance doesn’t work either, because then the perpetrators put on a hood and are still unrecognizable.”