Copper Crooks Arrested In North Miami Beach
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - A couple of copper theft suspects were good, but not good enough to avoid getting caught.
The duo cut a hole in the roof of a vacant store, which used be a Staples, at 735 NE 167th Street and started ripping out the tubing in the walls to get at more than a thousand pounds of copper inside, according to police.
But their actions didn't go unnoticed. Someone called the police and the men, described as being in the late 40s or early 50s, hid in the ceiling to avoid arrest.
Using flashlights and K9s, police searched the dark interior of the building. The K9s alerted to a wall in a small dark bathroom of the business.
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When officers ordered the men to come down from the ceiling, they refused, so police were forced to bring them down. One of the men was injured in the process and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. The other was taken to police headquarters for questioning.
Police said these men were professionals and may have been part of a larger operation.
"A lot of times we find that this is a group of people, or a ring of people, who go around burglarizing these businesses and stealing this copper because they get a lot of money for it on the street," said North Miami Beach police Captain Richard Rand. "We're going to see if we can connect any other crimes to these two particular individuals."
Police say copper can be sold for about three dollars a pound.
It turns out the strip mall where the store is located was targeted by copper thieves a month ago.
"They cut all the cables on the top of the roof," said Nestor Yanes who does maintenance for the shopping center owners. He said the empty store was was targeted in the exact same way, a hole in the roof with the burglars going after "copper, a lot of copper." In the process, they caused thousands of dollars in damage.
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