Flash! Stealing electricity is risky business

By Abigail Goldman, Phoebe Sweet

Thursday, May 29, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Before the live wire carrying stolen electricity disappeared into the thief’s house, the line snaked past community mailboxes — putting moms, toddlers and everyone else in the neighborhood at risk of electrocution.

Mercifully, no one was hurt before Nevada Power discovered and ended the piracy last year. The thief, whose name the utility did not release, also managed to avoid a nasty shock, which made him more fortunate than some who steal from Nevada Power.

The utility uncovered 1,400 cases of electricity theft last year. Nevada Power officials won’t say exactly what the dollar value is, but they say the figure rose 19 percent from 2006 to 2007. They also say that in most years thieves steal the equivalent of 1 percent of the utility’s annual power sales. At that rate, the tally would have been $23 million last year.

The exact number of electricity thieves out there is unknown because Nevada Power can count only the ones caught by its team of seven full-time investigators. Their sole mission is to find the pirates by inspecting suspect meters.

They’ve snagged people stealing anywhere from $100 to $27,000 worth of juice. At the high end was a man who had gotten away with it for 17 years. Utility officials won’t say how he did it because they don’t want others to copy his technique.

But they’ll say how they catch thieves like him. Sometimes it’s a computer program that detects something’s awry with the meter that reads power use in a home. Sometimes it’s a tipster calling or e-mailing about a shady neighbor.

And then there are the meters that obviously have been tampered with, meters with blood inside or other indications of a heist gone wrong.

“We constantly find power panels that show there was an electric shock,” says Steve Moyer, director of corporate security for Nevada Power Co.

There are usually 100 to 200 amps of power running through an average residential meter. Just half an amp can stop the human heart.

Which is why stealing power is not only costly to ratepayers, but also dangerous and more than a little bit stupid.

It isn’t rocket science. Anyone who stayed awake while their high school shop teacher explained the principles of electrical wiring can get the job done — and should understand that it could be fatal.

Internet forums for people growing marijuana sometimes delve into the best power theft techniques. One user gave his colleagues complete instructions before warning them not to follow his lead, because it’s dangerous.

He said he tapped into power feeder lines before they reach a meter, then did a “piggyback splice” to attach his wires to the incoming power and routed them to the desired location. Sometimes those feeder lines are underground, which requires a little digging. Other times they’re overhead, which requires a little climbing. Both ways require hiding that spliced wire, because it’s a dead giveaway somebody is siphoning energy off the grid.

Moyer says more than half the people who have been caught running large indoor marijuana farms in Southern Nevada were also found to be stealing lots of power. Creating an ideal growing climate inside a house, you see, requires a lot of high-powered lights, fans, water pumps, all kept on for many hours at a time. The bills would add up. But if you’re growing a crop of pot, then what’s to stop you from piling on the crimes? Steal the power, save money and avoid attracting the attention of utility investigators, who might want to know what you’re doing with all that power.

One Nevada family handed down how-to-steal-electricity instructions, like a recipe, from one generation to another. Inspectors caught up with them, in a handful of separate homes, all on the same morning.

“It’s a fun, fun job,” Moyer says.

Another thief was caught stealing power seven times and eventually served jail time.

Most power pirates avoid handcuffs, however. Moyer says investigators press charges only in extreme situations, such as the one in which the wires were strung along the route to the mailbox. The utility knows that the crooks will likely be customers again someday, and they’re required to pay up for the power they stole, no matter how large the bill. Sometimes they are put on long-term installment plans.

It’s a matter of priorities: safety, stopping theft, recovering the dough.

In the rare cases when the utility can’t come up with a plan to recover the cash from the thieves, police do get involved. But Metro investigators say they can’t remember the last time that happened.

Most of the people who steal electricity are decent folks who are down on their luck and make bad decisions in an effort to avoid yet another bill, Moyer says.

Since the foreclosure crisis began, more vacant homes have led to more squatters, some of whom steal power.

The general motive for pirating electricity is the same across the nation, but some places see more of it during certain times of the year. In Idaho, for example, power theft doubles in April, the first month of spring, because that’s the season when Idaho Power can legally shut off service for nonpayment, according to the utility’s spokeswoman, Anne Alenskis. The utility is not allowed to withhold electricity in the winter because so many Idahoans rely on it for heating.

In Nevada, the number of cases doesn’t typically rise in the summer, when air conditioners tend to run 24/7, Moyer says. The valley’s power pirates don’t stop stealing electricity in the winter.

Nevertheless, most states have it worse than Nevada. Utilities across the nation report theft figures about twice those of Nevada Power, Moyer says. He credits the Southern Nevada utility’s team of investigators, which has been tracking down thieves for three decades.

“The key is finding the new ways they do it and figuring it out. It’s like putting a puzzle together.”

But Moyer says sometimes investigators have a little help, too, such as when thieves are ratted out by their vengeful ex-girlfriends. Turns out a guy who’ll cheat the power company is often a guy who’ll cheat on his woman, too.

Interested exes take note: Nevada Power is waiting for you to call its tip line at 657-4158.