KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasNew Legislation Targets Metal Thieves
Selling scrap metal can be a lucrative business. Even with prices as low as 90 cents a pound for copper, when you're stealing it, the profits are pure and easy. That's where some new legislation is coming in.
You've always got to find next big score or the next big thing, yet Scott Stolberg and his company AAEQ are living the cutting edge right now and fighting the metal theft epidemic.
"It's just simply out of control," he said. "We're able to automate the process and document every transaction that takes place."
Stolberg is working with state lawmakers to craft a bill to pile up new requirements for scrap recyclers, and it would use Stolberg's $100,000 computer system as a model. The computers track fingerprints, ID's, pictures of every sale and every seller.
Under Stolberg's model, only high-ticket items like aluminum, copper, brass and stainless steel get recorded. All those megabytes of data would get set to Metro everyday to track thefts.
"It's all been developed out of a need -- a need nationwide for all recyclers to be able to document the stuff," he said.
Stolberg says there will be privacy concerns and fears of data mining. In the wrong hands, this is powerful and profitable information, "There's so much fraud in the world today that a business owner needs to be able to get that kind of information in order to protect himself."
Still, for an old business in a new age, the goal is still the same, "Arrest them, prosecute them and send them to jail."
The bill still has not been fully drafted or given a hearing date, so there might be some changes. The proposal already has bipartisan support though in both the Assembly and the Senate.
