Iron River, WI (Northlands NewsCenter) -- Three men are in custody after a third raid of copper happened in Northwest Wisconsin.
Friday morning greeted employees at the Bayfield County Electrical Coop with an open window, open cupboards and no copper. Copper wire spools from all the trucks had been stolen the night before.
To get into the building, the thieves would have had to climb from the ground to the window, a distance of nearly nine feet where they then used crow bars to pry themselves in and have free reign to the garage where all they wanted was copper.
"All they wanted was copper. I mean they passed up brand new chain saws that were in the trucks. They didn't steal the chain saws it was just the copper wires cause it's all they wanted. It seems that's all they wanted and that was the same thing in Mellon. At the Mellon shop they actually even used some of our good expensive tools to take the copper off of the trucks."
This isn't the first time this company has been hit by copper thieves. Its happened twice before...most recently just five months ago at their other location in Mellon Wisconsin.
"Last September and October our Mellon Shop down in High Bridge was broken into and they believe it was the same people that broke into our Iron River shop last Thursday night."
Raids for copper are becoming more common as the value goes up. Authorities say they notice more cabin are being broken into for their copper pipes throughout the Northwest Wisconsin region. The heist Thursday night has employees in Iron River fearing their safety.
"I guess we've come to where it is in the cities. You know we used to be up here in the north country you didn't worry about stuff like that. You didn't have that problem, but it's getting worse and worse and now we're going to have to start taking better precautions.
Diane Berweger, the General Manager at the BEC, says cameras and a security system will be installed in the near future in an attempt to prevent further thefts.
Authorities say they're still looking for one more suspect in the copper raids. Police have not yet identified the three suspects they have in custody.
Jordan Weinand
jweinand@northlandsnewscenter.com
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