Estonia to propose plan to combat rising metal theft

  • 2000-08-10
  • Laura Bailey
TALLINN - A panel of representatives from four government ministries will present their proposals this week on how Estonia should fight the number of metal cable thefts, which have reached their highest levels in five years.

The thefts have cost Estonian companies hundreds of thousands of dollars since the country regained its independence in 1991.

The panel was initiated three weeks ago in response to the difficulty police have had in stopping the rampant pilfering of power cables and telephone lines by thieves who then sell them to large metal dealers for recycling and export to the West.

Metal bandits in Estonia have plundered everything from metal independence statues to gravestone plaques, but the majority of their spoils come in the form of power and telephone cables. The Eesti Energia and Eesti Telefon companies have been most affected by the crimes.

"Today I have four reports of thefts in East Estonia, and 12 apartment houses have no electricity," said Eesti Energia's spokeswoman, Kristina Shanin. "Every month it's growing."

Most of the crimes, she said, occur in the northeast, which suffers from greater unemployment and social problems than any other region in Estonia.

The panel includes members from the ministries of justice, internal affairs, economics and environment as well as representatives from the state-owned Eesti Energia. If accepted, their proposals will restrict how metal dealers can buy scrap metal, a move they say will effectively cut the number of dealers operating in Estonia and make it easier for law enforcement to control the rising number of crimes.

"If the [metal buying] centers would not accept scrap metal without any hindrance and without any selection, the thieves would lack abilities and it would be senseless to steal," said Kai Tanavsuu, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economics.

Tanavsuu said the panel will try to increase supervision over metal buying centers so that transactions involving stolen metal will no longer slip by law enforcement.

The Interior Ministry's representative to the panel, Lauri Tabur, said part of the problem is Estonia's Waste Law, under which all metal not mined in Estonia is considered waste. The law makes the line between theft and refuse collecting unclear, he said.

The proposed changes to the law would take copper and aluminium out of that category and make it illegal for anyone other than energy and telephone companies to sell unwanted copper and aluminum cables. Police could then identify stolen metal more easily.

These plans will likely result in a dramatic cut in the number of metal dealers, as there is not enough non-ferrous scrap metal in Estonia to support the continuation of 60 metal dealers, Tabur said. He estimated that the number of such businesses would dwindle to less than 10.

Ivar Soone, spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, said it would be good if the number of metal sellers went down.

"The less the better," he said. "With less companies trading, it would be easier to control them."

In the span of two days last week, Eesti Energia had 3.5 km of cable stolen.

And in July alone, the company lost 208 km of cable and spent 3.5 million kroons ($212,000) replacing the stolen and damaged wires.

Eesti Telefon has also been greatly affected. The metal thefts cost 800,000 kroons ($49,000) in damages to its telephone wires, fiber optic cables and switches in the first six months of the year.

Fiber optic cables, which are expensive and complicated to repair, are often broken by thieves because they look like ordinary cables from the outside, said spokesman for Eesti Telefon, Ain Parmas.

Last fall, Parmas said the company had to send experts via helicopter to Johvi in the northeast of Estonia, after would-be cable thieves left the town without telephones after breaking important fiber optic cable lines.

Other restrictions being considered by the panel would replace all cash transactions with a credit transfer system and also require all dealers to be licensed.

"This would effectively help to prevent the turnover of stolen goods, as thieves do not want to leave any tracks about their operations," said Tanavsuu.

Currently the police force doesn't have the human resources to keep watch over all 60 metal buying companies that do business in Estonia, said police spokesman Indrek Raudjalg.

"If the country had 10 times more police officers, then the problem would be less. Unfortunately, we have a limited number of police officers, and we can't send them out to every metal center."

The best solution, he said, would be to outlaw metal centers from buying metal from private citizens.