Stolen Metals Help Fuel New Jersey’s Opioid Crisis

Stolen metals help fuel NJ’s opioid crisis

James Nash North Jersey Record USA TODAY NETWORK – NEW JERSEY

Tens of millions of dollars worth of metals ripped from cellphone towers, power stations and even graveyards are being fenced at secondhand shops and scrap yards by drug addicts looking to pay for their next fix, a state watchdog agency found.

The State Commission of Investigation said the rampant theft — occurring under the noses of local authorities — leads to breakdowns in cell service and electrical power, as well as higher costs for taxpayers and consumers to replace wiring, manhole covers and other metal stolen from communities and businesses.

The illicit trade in stolen metals is a major driver of New Jersey’s opioid crisis, the commission said in a report, noting that more than a third of overdose victims in two counties showed up in databases of people who had sold materials to secondhand stores, pawn shops and scrap metal yards. Many owners and employees of the businesses actively encourage addicts to steal and sell metal, the commission said.

“The enormous costs of the illicit bargain between thieves and unscrupulous owners are borne by all New Jerseyans: the ratepayers who see higher bills for cell service and electricity; the consumers who pay more for goods at retail stores; the taxpayers ultimately responsible for replacing infrastructure that has vanished in the night,” the report said.

“By providing an easy route for drug addicts and opportunists to cash in on stolen metal and merchandise, these enterprises have helped spawn an endless cycle of theft, one that law enforcement cannot keep pace with, much less end, without a muscular response from the state.”

The commission, a 50-year-old taxpayer- funded investigative body that advises policymakers, recommended stronger state oversight of scrap yards and secondhand retailers. It noted that even in communities that regulate the secondhand stores, many police aren’t aware of the authorities these regulations give them.

The SCI highlighted the efforts of Ocean County and Pine Beach in particular for mandating stricter safeguards.

County with naloxone, the opioid overdose antidote, turned up in the RAPID system as sellers, highlighting the link between addiction and fencing stolen property.

An ordinance in Pine Beach that requires background checks on owners, shareholders and employees of scrap yards and secondhand goods stores has served as a model for other towns, according to the report.

The commission recommended that the New Jersey State Police license scrap yards and secondhand stores and require criminal background checks for owners and employees. The report also suggested that the state require more documentation from sellers of metals and prohibit dealers from accepting metal marked as the property of telecommunications companies, utilities and local governments.

Officials in the New Jersey attorney general’s office, which the commission asked to follow up on its findings, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New Jersey has one of the nation’s worst opioid abuse problems. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1,409 New Jerseyans died from overdoses of heroin and prescription painkillers in 2016, a rate of 16 deaths per 100,000 persons, which exceeds the national rate of 13.3 deaths per 100,000.

Many stores and scrap yards abet the crisis by encouraging people to steal high-value copper wiring, batteries and other metal from cellphone towers, construction sites and utility stations, the Commission of Investigation found. New Jersey ranked second in the nation for insurance claims stemming from metal thefts, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.

“The enormous costs of the illicit bargain between thieves and unscrupulous owners are borne by all New Jerseyans.”

State Commission of Investigation report

Ocean County is the only county in the state that requires owners of pawn shops, secondhand goods stores and scrap metal yards to record all transactions in an online database that law enforcement agencies have access to, according to the report.

The SCI’s analysis of that database, the Regional Automated Property Information Database (RAPID), showed that nearly four out of 10 overdose victims who were treated in Ocean