Essex UK Gang Jailed for £1m Theft of Openreach Broadband Cables

The Essex Police, which had been investigating thefts of copper broadband and phone cables from Openreach (BT) across several counties in England, have announced that a gang of four men have been jailed for a combined total of 14 years. The men were responsible for stealing almost £1m worth of the operator’s telecoms cables.

The Essex Police are understood to have deployed their Serious and Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) to identify those responsible for a spate of related thefts of cable and plant material in rural locations across Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and in Wrexham. The group would travel in 4×4 vehicles which displayed false registration plates, access manhole covers containing cable, cut it and winch it to the vehicle.

The cabling, which ran for several miles underground, would then be dragged out using the vehicle. The serious and costly network damage this caused frequently resulted in local broadband and phone services being disconnected for a protracted period, although the perpetrators of such crimes never have any regard for the harm they cause to people, some of whom were dependent upon the services as a vital lifeline.

The offending meant a loss to BT and other victims of more than £750,000, with wider costs to home and business customers never fully being known due to the significant outages caused as a result. But police got a break when, during one offence in Earith, Cambridgeshire, they arrived to find a 4×4 vehicle in a field with evidence of stolen cable around it.

The investigation that followed ultimately lead to the police being able to identify four gang members – Billy Lee Junior, Levi Lee, Samuel Sheady-Jones and Ashley Byford. The gang ended up being linked to 31 offences over a nine-month period.

Detective Inspector Frazer Low said:

“This group caused widespread disruption, across a number of areas in England and Wales over a nine-month period.

There was a significant impact on Openreach as a business totalling more than £650,000, which includes the cost of replacement of copper cable, materials, labour and any traffic management and civil engineering costs.

There was also an indirect financial cost to the business and its customers, with 16,000 customer lines disrupted and I have absolutely no doubt that the offences caused vulnerable people to be cut off from family, friends and assistance in an emergency.

This group may have thought they were acting under the radar and weren’t going to get caught. But unfortunately for them, we were able to piece together their movements and their actions and ultimately prove unequivocally that they were responsible.

The evidence and information which Openreach was able to supply played a large part in helping us build our case against the group and I’d like to thank them for working so hard alongside us. Ultimately, this work has resulted in a group of people being brought to justice.”

Emma Sandison, Openreach Security Director, said:

“Cable thefts are hugely disruptive. The loss of phone and broadband is not only inconvenient but can put vulnerable people at risk. Repair work also pulls our engineers away from other work, can take weeks to finish, and costs thousands of pounds.

We take the security of our network seriously and have a wide range of crime prevention tools to prevent thefts and catch those responsible. Our dedicated security team investigates all attacks and our network is alarmed and monitored 24/7 by our control centre.

We’re pleased to have worked with Essex Police and others in a multi-agency approach which has had a positive outcome.”

Crimes like this have become increasingly common in recent years, driven in part by the high price of copper and the rising cost of living that has pushed more people into poverty. But over the past couple of years’ we have seen a rise in the number of UK-wide arrests (examples here and here), often followed by some convictions, which is starting to dent the activity.

Openreach has also reported a 30% reduction in cable theft over the past year, not least after introducing a new forensic liquid marker (SelectaDNA) to help track and protect their network (here). But that takes time to deploy and can’t be added to cables that are already in the ground.

The ongoing deployment of full fibre (FTTP) lines should, eventually, help to reduce such thefts as fibre has no value to thieves. But this won’t completely stop the problem from occurring because fibre and copper cables often share some of the same ducts, and thieves sometimes confuse the two. BT and Openreach will eventually remove their copper cables too, but that’s a much longer process.

Openreach also has a partnership with Crimestoppers, which sometimes offers rewards for information given anonymously to the charity about cable thefts, if it leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. You can contact them 100% anonymously on 0800 555 111 or use their anonymous online form. You can also contact Openreach’s security team direct or report via the local police (101), or if you see a crime in progress, then call the police on 999. Credits to Thinkbroadband for spotting this news.