WASHINGTON (dpa) – They steal mostly at night when no one is around to watch, and they come armed with coat hangers, bicycle tubes or kitchen utensils.
The culprits cause more than five billion dollars’ worth of damage a year: America’s energy pilferers who help themselves to power or gas.
The ingenuity of the thieves is remarkable. Take the case of a factory boss in Milwaukee who built his own device to bypass the meter in his plant. He would switch it on again in the week before the meter reader was due. That is, until he forgot. The sudden rise in power usage aroused the suspicions of officials at the utility and the man was caught.
The owner of a 15-storey office block was brought to justice because of the ridiculously low amount of electricity shown on the meter he had tampered with. In Carrollwood, Florida a man was nabbed after managing to heat and air-condition his 325-square-metre house for eight years without paying a cent for power.
Investigators have found magnets specially designed to slow down the meters. Other methods of jamming them employ wires, table forks and a variety of tools. It seems bicycle inner tubes and garden hoses come in handy for manipulating gas pipes.
The utilities are worried about the dangers involved.
“Messing around with electricity meters is risky and can lead to shocks, fires and explosions,” warned Dave Jackson, chief meter reader at the Lee County Electric Cooperative in North Fort Meyers, Florida.
The companies are worried about safety but more concerned about their incomes. Privatization is advancing, the number of suppliers jockeying for position is on the rise and it is becoming harder than it used to be to offset the bills left unpaid by scroungers by hiking up prices for the honest customers.
The gas and light utilities have therefore stepped up their drive to track down illegal consumers and on the company websites the topic crops up frequently and is discussed frankly. Many firms have set up hotlines and urge their honest customers to blow the whistle on people they think might be cheating.
The International Utilities Revenue Protection Association (IURPA) has drawn up an online form which can be used by the public to report notorious non-payers. The association, set up in 1990 with the aim of combatting the unauthorized use of power, passes on the names of suspects to the companies affected. The IURPA has more than 400 members.
According to those trying to track down the energy thieves, the level of criminal activity tends to rise with the prices charged for gas and light. In the case of gas misdemeanours, U.S. Energy Department sources report a 56-per-cent increase last year.
“It’s logical that when the gas and power prices go up, people who would never have thought about stealing before start doing it,” said Clive Freeman, association chairman, “and that applies to the needy and the greedy.”
Recent raids in California turned up numerous marijuana cultivators who had been fostering the tender plants in dingy cellars decked out with hundreds of light bulbs to simulate daylight. Once the energy detectives were through with them, the drug squad was called to the scene.
