Police recover copper cables worth P35,000
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Tuesday March 7, 2023 06:00
Letlhakane Police Station commander, Superintendent Michael Maphephu said that the quartet was recently arrested in Sojwe village.
He said that the suspects were arrested while they were on their way to sell the copper in Gaborone where they claimed to have potential customers. The Letlhakane police chief revealed that the perpetrators stole the copper wires from water wells. He said that culprits target most fields with boreholes, which mostly use the irrigation system.
He added that they dig and remove the copper cables used underground for the same system. “After stealing the copper, they immediately remove the outer cover to make it difficult to identify it. We managed to recover the industrial copper, which is estimated to be worth about P35,000,” Maphephu said. He also mentioned that two of the suspects were sought after for numerous copper theft incidents. The Letlhakane police boss said he is concerned about the alarming cases of copper cable theft in their policing area.
He said that so far, they have registered 15 cases of copper cable theft since the beginning of the year. He stated that most of the stolen copper cables worth thousands of pula have not been recovered. Maphephu suspected that there is a market for copper cables in Gaborone, especially in the metal scrap yard, which they also suspect sell to a wider market in South Africa.