Just some advice from an electrical contractor friend. He told me of a case where the utility had a strong suspicion that electricity was being stolen from a residence. So they put a second meter up on the pole and compared the readings.
Obviously the pole meter recorded more usage, so they dug up the line to house and found the tap. The guy owned the house and this was also an electrical contractor...so he got the book thrown at him.
We had a guy off for payment take a 14ga wife off the top of the service to his panel, tried to run the whole house off that in the summer. Responded to the fire call and the Chief told us he suspected some “electric issues” before the structure collapsed. Those fire investigators are amazing, respect to them.