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GoogleThe sheriff's deputies stopped a burglary in progress Monday at the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) site south of Hinton on Highway 75.
One juvenile was arrested and is being held on theft in the second degree, a class D felony, and trespassing, a simple misdemeanor.
The WAPA burglary seemed to involve copper wire theft, Sergeant Lynn Steckelberg of the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office said.
"Over the last couple of weeks, there's been a rash of them around the area," Steckelberg said regarding copper wire burglaries.
"It covers a huge area, we're talking northwest Iowa," he said.
Theives steal copper wire to sell it as valuable scrap copper.
The WAPA burglary was stopped with good police work, Steckelberg said.
A routine patrol to the WAPA site caught the burglary in progress, he added.
Other than copper wire, the only damage done to WAPA was a cut lock on the gate.
The investigation is ongoing and there is an arrest warrant on at least one other subject involved in the incident.
Steckelberg said it was too soon to say whether the copper wire burglaries around the region are connected.
The sheriff's office was assisted by the Kingsley Police, Hinton Police, Remsen Police, Le Mars Police, Woodbury County Sheriff's Office and Iowa State Patrol.
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Not just a North West Iowa problem, a world wide problem!!! I had friends in New Zealand watch what they thought were Power Board workmen strip power-lines from their street on a Saturday afternoon only to find out, too late it was clever thieves. friends in South Africa who have given up on land lines for phones as the network is always down due to wire thefts and here in Perth, Western Australia, the railways lost most of their communication system when around 500 miles of copper wire was stolen over a holiday weekend.
So who buys it? Scrap Metal Merchants. Time for them to open their books and show the authorities who they are buying from. That should cancel the demand!! Or is that too much Big Brother power??