Thieves take to great drain robbery

Paris: From church roofs and grand statues to drain covers and even the humble tweezer, objects made of metal are being targeted by thieves in France looking to cash in on a surge in raw material prices, the police have said.

Thefts of copper, aluminium, zinc and nickel were up 144 per cent in France last year.

"We are witnessing a real pillage of companies' assets," Colonel Philippe Schneider, who heads a police division that specialises in countering such crime, told reporters. "Everything can be stolen, everything can be sold - cables, drain covers, sculptures," Schneider said. "We even had 300 kg of tweezers stolen."

Other targets included plane doors, phone booth floors, car wheel rims, cemetery gates and a church roof made of zinc. Copper, widely used in construction and industry, became a big target for thieves last year as prices of the metal doubled to $8,800 a tonne at one point due to booming Asia demand.