How to catch a scrap metal thief

Video of scrap metal thief on Barnes MetalCrafters' property.

Plenty of things must be accounted for in a fabrication shop. Tools, material, consumables, paper towels, and everything in between, inside and outside. Sometimes these things go missing, and someone needs to be held accountable. It may be a shady employee, or it may be a random ninja-like person who steals things while being filmed. You never know.

Fortunately, we currently have a really solid group of guys who are quite trustworthy. I’m not gonna tell you that we haven’t dealt with some mysterious disappearing acts in the past, but it is what it is. That’s why small-shop cultures tend to filter out the good people from the bad.

When it comes to metal and finished goods, we typically store these inside the shop. Finished goods are shipped out as soon as possible, so that they don’t take up much of our floor space. We don’t have much real estate indoors; any room on the floor is valuable to the next job.

Carbon scrap is stored in a large dumpster outside that is emptied on an as-needed basis. We pay for this service from the value of the scrap. This is pretty typical for most plants or shops. We don’t have a fenced-in area to keep people out after hours, so anything left outside normally is not worth much to anyone besides someone who can make something out of it, aka, a sheet metal fabrication shop.

Occasionally we leave heavy angle iron or rebar that doesn’t have much scrap value outside. It often is very long and couldn’t be taken by one person, unless he had a lot of time on his hands and a trailer.

The holidays typically are when we have to start buttoning down on what we leave outside. People are looking for that extra Christmas money or that quick $5 fix. It’s sad to say, but yes, we do have to take that into account because of our location.

We were pretty lucky over the recent holidays and didn’t have anything go missing. It wasn’t until late January that we started noticing things out of the ordinary. We had some bad snowy weather one day, and several of the guys couldn’t make it to work. Our shop was shorthanded, and we had to make the best of it. I was going to run the laser for the day and try to heat the shop up a bit. We duct the chiller air into the shop during the winter to heat it, and somebody needed to do it.

When I went outside to turn the bulk tanks on, I noticed a few footprints in the snow near our scrap dumpster. There was no reason for anyone to be on that side of the building, so I knew something strange was going on. I mentioned it to my dad, and he didn’t think too much of it. We both went on about our day.

The next morning we noticed a couple of metal skeletons in the parking lot and two large pieces of angle iron near our front door. One was resting across two bollards, and the other was leaning up in the air. We literally had to walk around them to get to the front door. The first words out of dad’s mouth were, “What the hell is that doing there?” The wind doesn’t blow stuff like this around, and someone had to have moved it. One my co-workers approached me and said he had some rebar missing for the job he was doing. Dad told me to check the cameras.

When you have metal pieces that are out of place, it is very easy to find out when they were moved when searching through the video. You just have to keep bouncing back and forth from seeing it there to not seeing it. Within a couple of minutes, I was watching this guy walk around our lot, prepping and moving metal around. I immediately went back a day earlier on the video and searched for snow without footprints and snow with footprints. He was there the night before, rummaging through our dumpster and stealing the heaviest drops he could get his hands on.

What was left of a completed order of galvanized parts to be delivered to a customer after the thief struck.

We called the police, who came to start a report and watch the video. By the time we were done meeting with the officer, our whole morning was shot, and we didn’t get anything accomplished for the day. We were pretty frustrated.

We left the angle iron sitting in front of our building, and the police said they would keep an eye on it over the weekend. We didn’t have the video ready to give to the police officer, so I said I would email him when it was ready.

After the officer left, we realized the thief had taken a lot more than we originally thought. He had parked just outside of one of our cameras’ viewing angles and had loaded his vehicle up with more than $5,000 worth of finished goods. Like I said earlier, scrap value was next to nothing. These finished parts were laser-cut, folded, and welded. Some were saw-cut and welded. They all had been sent off for hot-dip galvanizing, and they were completely ready to deliver to the customer. Why would anyone steal something like this? We had a small crate full of these small parts, and he had taken all of them, except a couple of plates.

On Monday we got to work and our angle iron was gone, as well as some other items. The thief had come back Sunday morning and stole the heavy-wall angle iron by himself. He threw it in the back of his Chevy Trailblazer, along with some neatly folded skeletons. We thought for sure he had come only on Sunday, but after checking the video, we discovered he had returned on Monday morning as well.

This guy couldn’t get enough. We put some stuff inside but left other things outside as bait. This was getting old quick. Once again our Monday was wasted spending time with police.

Dad decided to take matters into his own hands. We had some stainless steel that he could take to the scrapyard, so he went down there to see what he could find out. He came back with a smile on his face. He said, “His name is Anthony Pegues. I watched him turn in our material for money at the scrapyard.”

We were surprised that it was that easy for dad to find out any information. Scrapyard personnel pulled this guy up on video and had every bit of information necessary for the police to catch him. The company wouldn’t tell dad much, but at least, we could relay what info we had to the detective.

The next day, Tuesday, we didn’t have anything missing when we showed up to work. It was a normal day, and we all joked and said the thief didn’t work on Taco Tuesdays.

Wednesday morning we had more material strewn around the parking lot, and we knew our guest had come back for more. We went ahead and started the videomaking process. This time I showed my co-worker Doug Teets how to make it, because I was getting tired of doing it. I also had to use his desk to make the videos, so it made more sense anyway.

For the next two days I arrived at work to find Doug making videos of the thief stealing stuff from outside the shop. The best part was that on Friday, the thief was taking his time folding up skeletons when the police pulled down the street. It was a game of cat and mouse. The thief slowly walked behind the metal dumpster as the police drove past. We watched the policeman get out and walk around his car while he was hiding behind the dumpster. The police eventually left, and our thief made it back to his car and drove away.

The thief playing cat and mouse with the police and winning.

By this point I should start referring to the thief as Anthony. We knew quite a bit about him. He probably should have come and applied for a job so that he could have tidied up our yard a bit.

We had talked to several different police officers and were almost on a first-name basis with a few of them. I had to do most of the talking, because it was getting to the point where dad was taking the blame out on them in frustration. I told dad to take it easy and let them do their jobs. There was no way this guy could keep doing this for much longer.

Dad was in the process of finding an electric fence device so that we could put a charge on our scrap material. We told an officer we were thinking about doing this, and he said, “That’s above my pay grade. I’m not going to say one way or another.” He was funny about it, and made the motion like he was sweeping the thief’s ashes up off the parking lot. It was nice to make light of the situation.

We went home for the weekend after a long week of wasted time spent with the police. Monday, we showed up and there was a metal skeleton on the opposite side of the building from where we keep them. Dad and I looked at each other, and he told me to call the police. I went inside and Doug handed me a CD of the video he made. It was becoming an everyday routine. The next day was Taco Tuesday, so we figured Anthony would not be working. We were correct, but on Wednesday, Doug had to make another video and I had to call the police again.

You could tell that the police officers were nearly embarrassed to come and talk to us. Anthony was coming close to the same time every night (except Tuesdays). On Thursday we were fortunate enough not to have to call the police. Our day went on as normal, and we actually got a little bit of work done. The police were there so much that our guys got used to seeing them in the office. It was like they were walk-in customers who needed something done.

Later in the day I received a call from the detective working the case. He informed me that Anthony Pegues was arrested in the act of selling our scrap metal. It was such a relief. I told him I was going to go tell everyone in the shop.

The next day one of the officers who had visited us a couple times previously told us personally that Anthony was arrested. He didn’t know we already knew, and it was a nice gesture on his part. The officer seemed just as excited as we were. While he was talking to us, dad told me to print out the picture I had made of the thief walking behind the dumpster while the police drove slowly past. Dad then handed it to him; he got kinda quiet and said he would give it to the officer who was there that night. He was a little embarrassed, to say the least.

Our thief, Anthony Pegues, will be spending some time behind bars. People that take things get under my skin. This guy went above and beyond to steal from us. Instead of stealing from us in the early hours of morning, he could have been waking up to go to a legitimate job and actually making a respectable living. I don’t get it.

Our saga finally came to an end. In the future we will be a little more prepared and possibly have a little more land to protect our property with a fence. But that may not stop some people. If these would-be thieves asked for my advice, I’d tell them, “Get a job, man.”

All images courtesy of Barnes MetalCrafters, Wilson, N.C.

Photo of the thief taken from the Wilson, N.C., PD website.