The theft of ca­ble—cop­per wire—has clear­ly be­come a high­ly prof­itable and mon­ey-mak­ing black-mar­ket in­dus­try that has pushed crim­i­nals to go on a ram­page across this coun­try, in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly steal­ing state in­fra­struc­ture to ac­quire the valu­able met­al any­where they can be found.

Over the past few weeks, ca­ble thieves have struck at pri­vate busi­ness­es like Massy Wood and more com­mon­ly, ca­bles be­long­ing to the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) have been cut and cart­ed away.

Ear­li­er this year, TSTT lament­ed the preva­lence and rise in ca­ble cop­per thefts dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. It not­ed that 161 peo­ple were tak­en be­fore the courts—at that time May 4—for steal­ing ca­bles.

But now, these thieves have ex­pand­ed their reach, strik­ing at oth­er arms of pub­lic util­i­ties, even af­fect­ing the coun­try’s pre­cious wa­ter sup­ply.

Ca­ble crim­i­nals left res­i­dents of Up­per Bournes Road, St James and those in Thicke Vil­lage, Siparia and sur­round­ing ar­eas with­out wa­ter when they re­moved the fit­ting from ac­tive wa­ter lines and cart­ed away ca­bles af­ter break­ing in­to a boost­er sta­tion re­spec­tive­ly.

While this is a type of crime few peo­ple talk about, it is be­gin­ning to prove cost­ly to com­pa­nies, the State and is now af­fect­ing the lives of thou­sands of or­di­nary cit­i­zens.

This is why Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s con­sid­er­a­tion of a pos­si­ble ban on the scrap iron in­dus­try could not have come at a bet­ter time. On Thurs­day, he not­ed the im­pact it has been hav­ing on the coun­try’s in­fra­struc­ture, with even man­hole cov­ers al­so be­ing stolen with no re­gard for the safe­ty of un­sus­pect­ing mem­bers of the pop­u­la­tion.

Al­though the group rep­re­sent­ing the Scrap Iron Deal­ers has called for di­a­logue and just a pro­hi­bi­tion on the sale of cop­per and not the en­tire scrap iron in­dus­try, de­ci­sive ac­tion must be tak­en.

For such an in­crease in the theft of ca­ble to sky­rock­et in just a short pe­ri­od of time, it means there is a lu­cra­tive mar­ket with very high de­mand for the cop­per con­tained in these lines. It could al­so mean that some scrap iron deal­ers are in­deed part of this un­scrupu­lous crim­i­nal con­duct and fu­elling this il­lic­it trade.

As such, con­sid­er­a­tion of a ban for what the Prime Min­is­ter called a “sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od of time” may al­so not even be enough.

Al­ready, un­der the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, the theft of ca­ble comes with a fine of up to $250,000 and im­pris­on­ment of up to five years. But that has done lit­tle to thwart these thieves. Giv­en the fre­quen­cy at which this type of crime is oc­cur­ring and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions it has on the coun­try’s in­fra­struc­ture and dai­ly life, per­haps a re­view of the penal­ty—for those caught steal­ing ca­ble and those in pos­ses­sion of stolen ca­ble—is al­so ap­pro­pri­ate. In­deed, Gov­ern­ment must weigh leg­is­la­tion which will dish out harsh­er penal­ties for those found in this il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Ca­ble thefts are not just a TSTT prob­lem any longer, it is a na­tion­al one which re­quires swift and res­olute ac­tion.