By Ahmad Hathout
KINGSTON, Ont. – Kingston police announced Tuesday the arrest of two people on charges they engaged in the theft of Bell’s copper internet cables attached to telephone poles in the city.
At approximately 3:45 am on Sunday, the Kingston Police Patrol Division conducted a traffic stop on a truck travelling in the area of Perth Road and McAdoo’s Lane, according to a release Tuesday.
Police observed the rear of the truck contained tools used to commit wire or metal thefts. The roof of the truck included fresh footprints, indicating the individuals stood on the roof to cut the cooper cables from the Bell line. The driver was subsequently arrested.
Canvassing the area further, police also arrested a second person in a vehicle on the side of the road less than a kilometre away from the truck. That vehicle was full of cased copper wire.
Approximately 100 metres of wire had been cut and dropped from telephone poles a short distance away on Perth Road, the release said.
“A 31-year-old individual, along with a 32-year-old individual, both of Kingston, were charged with possession of property obtained by crime not exceeding $5000, mischief to property exceeding $5000, possession of break-in instruments and theft not exceeding $5000,” the release added.
“Kingston Police have been aware of a high volume of thefts and mischief to Bell Canada property, specifically copper internet cable affixed to telephone poles,” it said. “These incidents have resulted in thousands of dollars in damages and repair costs, and further affected local businesses and persons working from home with large scale internet outages.”
There have been 40 incidents of such vandalism on Bell’s network since the beginning of the year, Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said in a LinkedIn post this weekend. Bibic added the company has seen since January 2022 “more than 550 physical security incidents, representing thousands of hours of service interruption for our customers and millions of dollars in damage.”
The company has been in court over the matter. In June, the telco filed a lawsuit in New Brunswick against a person the company alleges stole some of its copper wire that left roughly 1,000 customers in Fredericton to lose service. The lawsuit also targets scarp metal businesses that are knowingly purchasing stolen cable.
The suit follows another filed by the company in Ontario against four people who allegedly broke through the protective fences surrounding the telecom’s cellular facilities at seven Ontario sites and stole copper equipment to sell to other unnamed individuals for a profit.
The lawsuits follow the release of a report by the largest telecommunications companies to Innovation Canada requesting that the federal government take more action against network facilities damage and theft.
The report recommended Parliament introduce a federal law that protects service providers’ “critical and ancillary infrastructure and maximizes criminal penalties in the event of willful or negligent damage to, and/or acts of vandalism or theft of critical network infrastructure.”
Bibic reiterated that call after the Kingston incident: “We’re calling on the provincial and federal governments to help protect this critical infrastructure by making the penalties stiffer and amending the criminal code to deter vandals and those who purchase or traffic in stolen materials.”
Photo via Bell CEO Mirko Bibic.
