Disoriented, staggering and with his entire body burned, Ezequiel Curaba (21) emerged from a well last Sunday afternoon.
Neighbors in Rosario filmed him in that state for what he had tried to do moments before:
steal medium voltage cables
that the distribution company EPE was installing underground.
He received
a devastating shock
, since that cable carried approximately 13 kilowatts, more than 50 times more energy than a tolerable shock for humans.
He died a day and a half later, after multiple organ failure, with
90% of his body burned
.
The one in Curaba is one of several cases reported in Rosario and throughout the country
of theft of medium and high voltage cables
, and other types, such as
fiber optic
cables .
The robbery that Curaba was trying to carry out was, in turn, of very high risk and very low reward:
a kilo of copper is paid between 6,000 and 7,000 pesos in the metal works
.
To get to the kilo of copper, in addition to risking his life, he had to steal two meters of that medium voltage cable.
In Rosario, on January 11, another man had already died trying to steal cables, as a result of an electric shock.
In La Plata, three days later, another young man wanted to do the same, but died hanging among the tangle of cables,
electrocuted
.
Edelap, the electricity distribution company in that city, had to cut off the supply to be able to take it off the hook.
In Las Heras, Mendoza, in February, another young man died from the same causes.
So far this year, these are the four cases in which cable theft attempts
ended in the worst way
.
“In 2023 there have been many cases of burns for the same cause and, although it may seem incredible, hospitalized for that reason who
were discharged and re-admitted for the same reason
,” declared Laura Taljame, deputy director of the Clemente Álvarez Hospital in Rosario, to
Cadena 3.
.
This is the hospital where Curaba was treated after his transfer, and also where he died.
Many others are detained for the same reasons.
In Rosario alone, the highest point on the map for this type of robbery,
95 people have been arrested since the beginning of the year
.
According to the local newspaper
La Capital
, Telecom estimated that in that city and since 2020, more than 150 tons of copper were stolen through cable theft.
The Provincial Energy Company (EPE) estimates the same amount of tons of copper coming from medium and high voltage cables, but only in 2023. According to this company, replacing each low voltage cable
cost 80 thousand pesos in October
, and it estimated that one cable of that type was stolen per day.
On January 11, in Rosario, a man died from electrocution while trying to steal cables.
Photo Juan José García
“There are two types of people who can venture to steal these types of cables:
the professionals or the brave
,” says a worker from an Edenor crew in Barrio Norte.
-The Braves?
—To manipulate this type of cables you have to have knowledge or completely throw yourself into trouble.
There are some that are hung with clips covered in hose or other rubber, to isolate the current and not get stuck.
That's fighting with a toothpick...
When he says professionals he means what evil tongues already say: that sometimes it is
the employees of distribution companies
who steal the cables, taking advantage of the knowledge about correct handling, in addition to having the appropriate tools.
How does the matter proceed once the cable has been cut and stolen?
It burns
, thus the plastic that covers it melts and only the metals remain.
Then, in the metal factories, large quantities are collected that are then re-entered into the market, offered to industries that require the metal and that pay
a price somewhat lower than that established by the legal market
.
In some cities, such as Buenos Aires or Rosario, the medium and high voltage electricity cable lines are
buried
;
In suburban areas and other areas, poles from which different types of cables hang are predominant.
Fiber optic cables have little copper, just filaments, but
electricity cables that are several years old have a greater amount
.
For the power lines that supply homes, two types of cables are common, concentric (10mm) and Sintenax.
To obtain a kilo of copper of the first type, you must have between three and four meters of cable;
in the second, between one meter and one and a half meters.
“And if they take them out from near a substation, where the cables are thicker,
with one piece of cables they can reach a kilo of copper
,” adds the Edenor technician, while measuring with his arms an extension equal to or less than the meter.
“But cables of this type almost no longer contain copper, because it is very expensive, even for distribution companies.
Now aluminum is used, which is cheaper and has similar handling.”
If copper is expensive for distribution companies, where is the business?
For him,
the person who wins the most is the reducer
: the one who melts and compacts the metal, once it has been stored in the metalworks.
Then, he maintains, it is the companies that produce different types of cables that buy this smuggled copper.
For a source from Transener, the main electricity transportation company in the country,
the business begins in the same place: the metal companies
: “Those who steal parts of the lines only keep crumbs, while the bulk of the business is from the 'reducer' upwards.”
He tells
of two bizarre cases
: in San Nicolás, the Eden distribution company is remodeling certain power lines;
The Police had to guard the rolls of cables and tool boxes 24 hours a day of each of the days that the work lasted, in January, and even then they could not prevent the theft, since one night a roll of cable was stolen on board a horse.
Another example, this time about another type of metal theft in wind farms: they open the nacelles of the mills, in which there are aluminum bars seven meters long and weighing twenty kilos.
To open the
nacelle
of a mill you must have a special key, and those who steal have those keys.
More than brave, those who rob the mills seem like professionals.
He cites the case of Mendoza, a province that, according to this source, took the bull by the horns: at the end of 2022,
it legislated the sale and resale of metals
, in an analogous way to what the “dismantling law” has done since 2003 with the auto parts.
A report presented by the Ministry of Security and Justice of that province stated that during January 2022 and January 2024, almost 40,500 kilos of copper were seized, the product of 123 raids.
In Santa Fe, another similar measure: in 2023 six articles of Law 14,191 were modified, in order to combat theft of cables and non-ferrous metals.
However, the cases of deaths and arrests due to cable theft do not seem to have been caused by professionals, by experts on the subject, but
rather improvised
.
Young people and changarines, others living on the street, who face an enormous risk, not only of electrocution, but also of burns or falls.
Although the increase in this type of crime is related to the worsening of economic crises, it must not only be related to hunger, but
also to drugs
.
It entails a high risk, yes, but as
Clarín
was able to find out , you earn the same by stealing a few meters of cable and selling its copper (or by stealing bronze doorknobs, elbows, and water and gas hoses made of the same material) as by
collecting cardboard or cans of aluminum all day
.
In this way, paying for certain vices is accessible in less time.
In Rosario, a dose of crack (cocaine reduced with baking soda to be smoked) ranges between 2,000 and 3,000 pesos: by collecting a few meters of cable and selling the copper, several doses can be obtained in just a while.
How does current legislation understand this type of crime?
As simple theft, with ridiculous penalties that are only justified by the damage to the distribution company and not, furthermore, to the neighbors affected by the interruption of this or that supply.
The Transener source concludes: “It is necessary to conceive the electricity supply as a
critical infrastructure
: one more of those that provide energy and services to the entire society.
The theft of a cable or other component is not only a loss for the distribution company, but for society as a whole.
In short, with the State.”
Clarín Master's Degree - University of San Andrés
ACE