ENEXIS
Tens of thousands of kilos of copper stolen from warehouse
MAASBREE – BAS DINGEMANSE
A storage company in Maasbree has been robbed by a gang of copper thieves. The men managed to steal thousands of kilos of copper cables belonging to Enexis. One suspect was arrested on Friday evening.
This was confirmed by a police spokesperson to De Limburger. “Officers on the scene saw two individuals attempting to flee. One of them was arrested. He is a 41-year-old man from Amsterdam,” she said. The man is no longer in custody but remains a suspect.
The gang operated in a professional manner. It appears the men cut through the fencing of a neighboring company, entered the back of the targeted warehouse through that property, made a hole in the wall, and little by little removed thousands of kilos of copper.
The theft in Maasbree was discovered last week, after which the company—one of many locations in the Netherlands where Enexis stores its cables—hired private detective John Vullers.
Vullers’ team discovered the hole, which had been camouflaged by the gang with a cover cloth and hidden behind bushes. This strengthened the investigators’ suspicion that the copper thieves would return. They decided to keep watch around the business premises in Maasbree.
Payday
On Friday evening, it was payday. Team Vullers observed at least six men heading toward the warehouse, to the entrance they had created themselves. The police were then alerted. Officers saw only two of the suspects, one of whom managed to escape. Detective Vullers declined to comment on the operation itself. “That’s not my place. I work for the client and pass my information on to the police,” he said.
It was not the first time he had dealt with such a case. “Two or three years ago, 34,000 kilos of copper were stolen from a company in Haelen. They also made a similar hole in the wall back then,” he said.
Eastern Europe
The former police officer strongly suspects that this concerns a gang operating in varying compositions. Although the arrested suspect is registered in Amsterdam, most of the gang is believed to have roots in the former Eastern Bloc. The police would not comment on this on Monday. “The investigation is still ongoing,” a spokesperson said.
The copper theft in Maasbree is the second in a short period. Last week, a group of men tried to steal cable reels—containing thousands of kilos of copper cables—from an industrial site in Tilburg. The van they used to transport the reels was so heavily loaded that its suspension gave way. Police ultimately arrested seven suspects in that case.
Copper is currently sold for about 7 to 8 euros per kilo. In Maasbree, between 50,000 and 60,000 kilos are believed to have been stolen, making the haul worth at least 350,000 euros.
