Three Copper Broadband Cable Thieves in Birmingham Jailed for 3 Years

At the start of 2026 we reported on how West Midlands Police had arrested a gang of three men who were in the process of trying to steal Openreach’s (BT) copper UK broadband and phone cables – worth £50k – from an underground site in central Birmingham (here). Yesterday the Birmingham Crown Court jailed each one for 3 years.

Proving a suspect or suspects have committed a crime often takes time, but in this case the wheels of justice were able to move a lot faster because the criminals were caught red-handed. Firearms officers who were patrolling nearby were flagged down by members of the public as a group of men were trying to steal cables on Great Charles Queensway at around 7.30pm on 20th Jan 2026. Two men were immediately arrested on suspicion of theft at the scene, and a van carrying cables was also recovered.

Shortly after that a third suspect was identified as still being underground, and officers, with the help of Police Dog Riot, “encouraged him to climb up the ladder and onto the street, where he was also arrested on suspicion of theft.” The video pasted below does a good job of depicting this part of the event.

However, the police now give a slightly different description of events from the original report, which states that the thieves were caught “after sophisticated alarms designed to detect tampering with the cables were triggered” – prompting Openreach to call the police. Firearms officers who “happened to be the in the area” were then quickly deployed to the site.

According to the Birmingham Crown Court (credits to the BBC News and YouTube), the three men – Marian Agarlita (37) from the Isle of Wight, and Sorin Condrache (45) and Aldafin Poenaru (49) both of Montague Road in Smethwick – caused damage that disrupted broadband and phone services for 5,000 surrounding premises. The damage caused also ran significantly higher than the £50k value of the copper cable they were attempting to steal (partly due to the weeks of repair work required).

PC Charlotte Gurrey, said:

“The gang were clearly skilled, organised, and a significant amount of planning went into their efforts to steal communications cable that night.

Agarlita initially refused to come up, and there were discussions about having to close and dig up part of the street so that whoever went down to bring him out was not at risk from damaged cables or any gas that may have leaked.

They showed a complete disregard for the knock-on impact on communication within the city, but swift work from officers who were nearby and the company who called 999 after the alarm was triggered meant they were quickly arrested and have now been jailed.”

An Openreach spokesperson said:

“Cable theft causes real harm. When phone and broadband services are taken out, it’s not just frustrating – it can leave vulnerable people without the support they rely on.

Putting things right isn’t quick or easy. Our engineers have to be pulled away from other vital work, repairs can take weeks, and the cost runs into thousands of pounds.

We take protecting our network seriously. We use a range of security measures to deter theft and help catch those responsible. Every incident is investigated by our specialist security team, and our network is monitored 24/7 from our control centre.

That’s why we’re pleased to have worked closely with West Midlands Police and local partners on a joined up approach that’s delivered a positive result.”

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. But the criminals, who have no regard for the disruption they cause (particularly with respect to vulnerable telecare users), are also coming under pressure from a rise in the number of UK-wide arrests (examples here and here).

Openreach have also previously reported a 30% reduction in cable theft during 2023/24 after introducing a new forensic liquid marker (SelectaDNA) to help track and protect their network (here), although it doesn’t cover older cables that are already in the ground.

The ongoing deployment of full fibre (FTTP) based broadband 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 for a while because fibre and copper cables often share some of the same ducts (i.e. damaging one also damages the other), and thieves sometimes confuse the two. Completely removing core copper cables will take quite a few years.