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MRB_Doom

Bridge Stolen in Poland, Sold for Scrap

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I remember some instances where old houses were broken into, locally, and all the copper piping was stolen for scrap. Times are though.

Unless you're 40oz, of course.

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Technician said:

I remember some instances where old houses were broken into, locally, and all the copper piping was stolen for scrap. Times are though.

That's still a common thing that happens in St. Louis. My friend went to look at a piece of property that seemed reasonably priced, only to find all of the wiring stripped and the water pipes jacked. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but at the time copper could be sold for a pretty penny (it being in high-demand in China). If a place is abandoned, that sort of thing will look like free money.

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Metal theft for selling to scrap is on the rise pretty much everywhere and is practically a plague. If you leave a piece of reasonably pure metal on the street, you can be sure it will be gone in under 5 minutes. The usual perpetrators vary, but e.g. in Greece they are usually Gypsies or Bulgarians.

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British railways are having a hard time keeping up with all the metal theft going on. This is (like Maes said) pretty much entirely down to pikeys and criminals trying to cash in on the scrap value. Our government has had the seemingly-bright idea of making cash-in-hand scrap transactions illegal and adding a load of beaurocracy to the whole deal... which of course hasn't addressed the issue of these people not worrying about the law in the first place.

As GreyGhost mentioned, lead disappearing off of rooves is pretty popular here in the UK too. Churches are the main target, as they tend to repalce the lead with more of the same. That's been going on much longer than I've been alive though.

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Phobus said:

Lead


At least in Greece, the lead cores inside ancient pillars had been pillaged and depleted during the times of the revolution, in order to cast them into black powder projectiles...

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Maes said:

The usual perpetrators vary, but e.g. in Greece they are usually Gypsies or Bulgarians.

Oh boy, racial stereotyping!

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Sodaholic said:

Oh boy, racial stereotyping!


Well, it's backed by facts and well documented in the news. It's no big news that most criminality is associated with particular demographics in our neck of the woods. Keep that affirmative action bullshit in the States, where it belongs.

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I'll have to back Maes up here - you can usually pidgeonhole certain crimes to certain demographics. It's definitely the case in the UK that you can almost gaurantee a rough description of who did it based on the nature of the crime and the location.

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I suppose Maes is right. Still, I don't like the idea of only specific minorities committing crimes, but I guess I can't deny reality.

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Often specific minorities are better "equipped" for certain crimes, e.g.

Gypsies: highly prolific, they have literally power in numbers. They put their female offspring to beggary (until they get married) while males are trained into thievery or some other craft. Plus, since collecting trash/recycling/smeltering is a very common -sometimes legitimate- business among them, they already possess the necessary know-how and transport means to deal with scrap metal. Plus, they can rely on clan cohesion and an extended network of "eyes" and "ears" in an area, an advantage that e.g. Greek wannabe scrap-thieves do not.

Albanians: "specialized" in violent crimes, due to the ease with which they can acquire firearms from their homeland, the power of Albanian mafia and their relative impunity (the police considers them too hardcore and will back off confrontations). Many perpertrators however act in small independent bands for one-off hits, e.g. groups of Albanians have been arrested after committing a robbery, and admitted to doing it simply because they were on their way back to Albania for a long period (thus unpersecutable), so they didn't want to waste the opportunity!

Bulgarians: usually these turn out to be Bulgarian Gypsies, so the same arguments apply. Compared to locally stationed Gypsies, they may lack in connections/clan cohesion, but they still manage to "do business". The actual Bulgarian Mafia is less active in Greece, also due to competition from Albanian and Russian-Pontiac mafia.

Russian-Pontiacs: particularly troublesome group, both from a criminology and social-political point of view. From a criminology POV, they have their own powerful mafia and run most of the brothels and drug business, in fierce competitions with Albanians. From a political POV, they are PITA because many of them are naturalized Greek citizens coming from ex-Soviet republics, under favourable political decisions. In essense, legalized immigrants which however don't give two fucks about the law AND have great political power and privileges that "ordinary" Greek citizens do not, like e.g. the right to free government housing and priority in public jobs.

So you see, it's not simply a question of skin colour or bad BO. There are real socio-economical and public order problems associated with those groups. In their "defense", they are simply taking advantage of a very lax/unwilling law enforcement, and every group simply plays on their particular strengths.

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Maes said:

Often specific minorities are better "equipped" for certain crimes, e.g.

Gypsies . . . Albanians . . . Bulgarians . . . Russian-Pontiacs

Yep - minority groups are the root of all evil. Anyone up for a bit of ethnic cleansing?

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GreyGhost said:

Yep - minority groups are the root of all evil. Anyone up for a bit of ethnic cleansing?


Look, when your minority groups are rich and harmless Swiss, Luxembourgish or San Marino and Monaco residents, it's easy to pretend you're "tolerant" and "multiethnic" for shits and giggles. La creme de la creme de la creme.

But the more the "minorities" start looking like skid row and lowlives, your attitude is bound to change.

With the exception of the Greek Pontiacs (whose legitimization was yet another political fiasco and yet another festering sore on the corpse of this country), all other groups I mentioned are also for the most part comprised of stateless, illegal and non-resident persons, which for the most part do not pay taxes and in general don't endure most of the hardships or bureucracy of a legitimate citizen, but they do enjoy most of their rights plus some that normal Greeks can only dream of. When you start being treated like an enemy in your own country, well, it's about time you take action.

And I simply pointed how each of these groups is better suited for certain particular crimes -you don't hear e.g. of Gypsy pimps or usury lenders very often, but they are absolute kings for scrap and petty theft, which they also prize as an element of their culture (rivaled maybe only by Albanians in this respect).

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Sodaholic said:

I have a random question for you, Maes. What are your thoughts on ancient Greece?


If you mean the romanticized ideal of Classical antiquity, it's a distant past with which modern Greeks only have a linguistic connection, and personally I find evoking it at every occasion as the mark of a has-been.

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An abandoned auto-dealership in Vallejo, California, which is perhaps a fifteen-miute drive from where I live, caught fire when a camp of homeless people attempted to strip out scrap metal with a torch. The building was a fire-hazard, heaped full of flammable garbage. Since the residents even took out some of the beams supporting the roof, fire-fighters were afraid the building would cave in on top of them. I'm sure similar things must be happening throughout the state.

http://www.ktvu.com/videos/news/vallejo-massive-fire-sparked-at-former-car/vC7g4/

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Since the turn of the century, when the US unleashed its hefty retirement funds to do pretty much what they please in the financial system, natural resources and industrial metals have increased in value through speculation and demand. This great demand has increased the amount of thefts to produce cheap scrap metal.

Maes said:
With the exception of the Greek Pontiacs (whose legitimization was yet another political fiasco and yet another festering sore on the corpse of this country), all other groups I mentioned are also for the most part comprised of stateless, illegal and non-resident persons, which for the most part do not pay taxes and in general don't endure most of the hardships or bureucracy of a legitimate citizen, but they do enjoy most of their rights plus some that normal Greeks can only dream of. When you start being treated like an enemy in your own country, well, it's about time you take action.

The fact they're categorized as "illegal aliens" is already a discriminatory position by the State. In that case, expect these people to continue making a living through marginalized or criminal behavior.

And I simply pointed how each of these groups is better suited for certain particular crimes -you don't hear e.g. of Gypsy pimps or usury lenders very often, but they are absolute kings for scrap and petty theft, which they also prize as an element of their culture (rivaled maybe only by Albanians in this respect).

See, you're reducing the cause to "their culture" and not considering the effects of the decisions from established society. In addition, these groups don't generally work alone. Albanians, for example, may end up as the "cannon fodder" taking copper items from there and there, but their buyers may well not be Albanians. One thing that goes with a heavy deregulation in business is corruption and crime to meet the demands of companies that try to lower their costs beyond levels that are sustainable in legit ways.

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myk said:

The fact they're categorized as "illegal aliens" is already a discriminatory position by the State.


That's the problem...they are not even considered that. Gypsies are effectively non-persons from a legal standpoint, while for actual illegal aliens to be labelled as such, they must first have to interact with the authorities in some measure, so for all effects and purposes these people are effectively "floating" in society.

Again, with saying that particular ethnic groups are more "suited" to particular crimes I meant that from a purely technical standpoint: Gypsies has "eyes and years" all over big cities (so they don't miss even the slightest scrap source), and the mobility/organization to remove the scrap and stash it away cleanly. Albanians can count on the fear of the authorities themselves and an infinite supply of arms, etc. while Russian-Pontiacs will prefer more subtle political means/connections to cover their business up. Trying to beat any of those groups at their own game for a total outsider is neigh impossible.

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I never would've figured maes would be the one to start sounding like a nativist asshole.

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Since when having a -slightly above average but still superficial- knowledge of how criminal groups operate, what their relative strengths are etc. is considered "nativist", whatever that is?

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Heh - found while browsing Wikipedia for something totally unrelated.

"In March, 2007, pirates stole an 11-kilometre (6.8 mi) section of the T-V-H submarine cable that connected Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, affecting Vietnam's Internet users with far slower speeds. The thieves attempted to sell the 100 tons of cable as scrap."

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Maes said:

Since when having a -slightly above average but still superficial- knowledge of how criminal groups operate, what their relative strengths are etc. is considered "nativist", whatever that is?


Ever since showering multiculturalism and political correctness with praise became a popular trend.

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