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Posted on 02/17/2026 10:36:59 PM PST by dennisw
By CBS Minnesota
A man who was part of a copper wire theft ring in St. Paul was sentenced to three years of probation.
Eh Tha Blay, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting third-degree property damage in December. In addition to his probation sentence, he must also serve 20 hours of community service.
He is one of five people charged in connection to copper wire thefts that took place in St. Paul between Nov. 10, 2023, and Jan. 15, 2024.
Officials say the ringleader, Kyaw Klay, rounded up the crew to steal the copper and would sell it to recycling plants. Klay received more than $12,000 from stealing the copper, investigators said.
Klay pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting telecom damage and was sentenced to three months of probation in April. Two of the others charged in the scheme have been sentenced to probation. One was ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
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And the cost to reinstall it was likely over $100,000
++++++++++++++
Triple that to start..
Ridiculous!
A total waste of public defender’s and the court’s time & taxpayer paid services.
These scoundrels sold the copper for 12k, how much $ damage did they do to the structures?
I’d say full restitution, and two years in prison would be a good start. Not a slap on the hand.
Took out stop lights? Heck, I say give them a medal. I reckon most stop lights are unnecessary. stop sign would work better in lots of instances.
“I’d say full restitution”
No way will this messed up state enforce restitution. In fact across the USA, lazy courts do not enforce restitution judgments. They are a freakin joke.
This reminds me of a time in my life that I will never forget...
The Early 90’s... I was pushing a crew that did safeties on the billboards you see on the side of the freeways. 4-5 guys, 2 pick up trucks and 1 - 100’ to 150’ boom truck. Life was good for 3+ years!! ...Until the new hire...
This guy, didnt have the know how(I realized it, being the foreman, the third day after this guy started) but he was one of those with the tremendous gift to gab... was everyone’s friend within a week, and the boss, his sister and mom who worked in the office, absolutely loved him!! and as predicted, within a month, he came after my job.
Long story short, after a few altercations, the boss had me in his office and let me go... I said, “Kurt, this guy is bad news and you’re going to regret it. Thanks for the years of employment...” said by to the mom and the weeping sister and left...
A year later I ran into the sister at a bar in town, and she told me I was absolutely right about that guy! 6 months after I left, Kurt got a call from the police that his guys were arrested and all his trucks were impounded. They were caught in an abandoned building stripping all the copper out of it!!
I could not freaking believe it!! ...and apparently, he never recovered from the loss of contract(loss of confidence with Gannett) and ended up closing his doors.
that trauma scar will live forever in the anals of SR’s Lore...
I’ve been a victim of copper theft. Substantial damages by the thief for a relatively small value of copper stolen. My damages were 15 times higher than the scrap value of the copper stolen.
____________________
Victor Davis Hansen has complained about copper theft at his family raisin and grapes farm. They steal copper lines that extend far to electric motors. For irrigation perhaps. Maybe for blowers to dry grapes into raisins
From another article.—”Copper wire thefts have cost St. Paul millions to repair in recent years, darkening streets and concerning residents.”.
Probation and 20 hours community service for a crew that caused in excess of $210,000 damage and they get sent home.
When the official “Justice System” refuses to provide justice, the People must find ways to impose justice outside the system.
A few years ago, there were a couple of meth heads stealing copper out of empty house in the next town over.
Unlucky for the thieves the landowner drove by.
They never heard him pull in, but when he looked in their van, it was full of copper wire. Van was riding really low apparently.
Not sure how, but three of the van’s tires were flattened, the key was broken off in the ignition. Thieves also left a wad of money in the van console - heard that ended up missing (about $3,000).
Landowner then called the sheriff’s office to report a break-in and copper theft in process.
Thieves got several years in state prison. Last I heard one died of an OD, the other moved out of state and later died. Both from good families in the area.
Laotian? Hmong?
CC
Who judges the judges ?
If a judge were to go easy on a criminal and said criminal goes on to commit yet another crime, often violent, what recourse does the citizenry have against this judge ?
How many wounds can the judge and their criminal friends inflict on the citizens seems to be the end game.
These new Americans immigrants are just stealing the Copper that us lazy Americans refuse to do.
I do business with a trucking company and scrap yard in Idaho.
They have a machine that removes the plastic casing from Romex wire cuts it up in 1/8” long pieces and spits it into a bin. The bins stop filling up at 4000 pounds. They put 64,000 on a maxi flatbed and haul it over to Oregon twice a month. That truckload is worth over $300K at the smelter.
They also crush cars and sell for scrap.
They also recycle Catalytic Converters. A 55 gallon drum of the rare earth metals separated from the other metal parts is worth $12K. The warehouse where the machine separates those CC is monitored 24/7. The most valuable CC is on a Ford Expedition. It has two that are worth $650 each.
A thief can cut those off your SUV in about two minutes with a battery operated sawzall.
They recently started recycling tires into shredded rubber.
They is a lot of money in scrap.
“They recently started recycling tires into shredded rubber.”
Mix them into asphalt for roads. Maybe concrete too.
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Yes—shredded tire rubber is being mixed into both asphalt and some types of concrete, and it’s become a significant reuse pathway for scrap tires.
In asphalt
Ground tire rubber (often called crumb rubber) is blended with asphalt binder to make rubberized asphalt, which is widely used for road surfaces in states like California, Arizona, and others.
This mix can make pavements more durable, reduce cracking, cut road noise, and extend the time between resurfacing, while also consuming millions of waste tires per year.
In concrete and road bases
Researchers and some pilot projects use finely shredded tire rubber or tire fibers inside concrete mixes to improve crack resistance and ductility; one optimized mix used about 0.35% tire fibers by volume.
Crumb rubber or tire chips can also be blended with crushed concrete rubble for road base layers, creating a 100% recycled material for the foundation under asphalt.
Trade‑offs and performance
Rubberized concrete often shows less cracking and better vibration damping, but if too much sand or aggregate is replaced with rubber, compressive strength drops, so practical mixes typically keep rubber content below roughly 10–15% by volume.
Overall, these uses help divert tires from landfills and support more sustainable road and infrastructure construction, though most real-world use today is still in asphalt rather than structural concrete.
We sometimes buy overstocks from a company called Rubberific.
https://www.lowes.com/pl/landscaping/edging/landscape-edging/rubberific/4294612583-4294813711
It is all made from recycled tires.
There is also the shredded rubber “mulch” that is used in playgrounds to potentially soften the impact of a child falling off the jungle gym.
Another company overseas makes bricks out of old rubber tires.
When the internet was newish, there were multiple pix readily available of electrocuted copper thieves on the ground beneath a power pole, totally fried head to toe. The good old days.
Illegal or not, all should be deported to their country of origin.
That gets you life in the great state of MN.
When I was a lad, a neighbor kid’s family had a unique euphemism for human excrement...
“Eh eh plop”
Sounds like one of the gang of “newcomers”.
Klay received more than $12,000 from stealing the copper,
= = =
Maybe the copper got $12K, but I’ll estimate the replacement cost, materials and labor was 100X.
Not including problems/costs with systems being disabled till fixed, if ever.
Oh, sometimes the fix is go to solar street lights. More labor and material costs (tax payer alert).
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