MACON, Ga. — A Macon business says they're out almost $30,000 over the past two weeks after a copper theft struck the store's air conditioning units.
But they didn't just hit the units once. In the past two weeks, the copper thief hit the store twice.
“We got a notification from our security cameras that there was motion back here and picked the guy up climbing over a block wall we had built to try to deter people from doing that,” Brad Proctor says.
Proctor owns Couture House Interiors on Vineville Avenue. He says this all started two weeks ago.
Surveillance video shared by the Bibb County Sheriff's Office shows someone climbing a wall before cutting copper out of the units.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that copper theft costs U.S. businesses over $1 billion a year.
After owning the store for the past few years, Proctor says they have never had problems with theft until two weeks ago.
Despite making efforts to deter copper thieves, Proctor says the same person has come to steal copper — while wearing the same clothes — less than 24 hours after the new air conditioning units were installed.
“He climbed over the wall even though we had had a block mason come out and add to the height of the wall and got the copper again,” he said
Sheriff Bill Massee in nearby Baldwin County says the copper gets sold and melted down.
He says the best way to prevent this from happening is to be proactive by locking your buildings, and making sure there are gates and fences around the air conditioning units.
Another thing that helps, Massee said, is video cameras.
As the Bibb Sheriff's Office shares the video of the suspected copper thief, the people at Couture House Interiors hope the footage will help lead to an arrest.
If you know this man, the sheriff's office urges you to call the Bibb County Sheriff's Office at 478-751-7500.