A crew of burglars turned an idle Holmesburg warehouse into a metal factory that supplied them with tens of thousands of dollars in recyclable copper recently, police say.
The crooks reportedly spent several weeks stripping plumbing and wiring from the 212,000-square-foot facility on the 7700 block of Edmund St. The site is along railroad tracks about two blocks from the Holmesburg station.
A property manager reportedly noticed the first break-in on May 14, but did not notify authorities. A window had been breached, so it was boarded up. Burglars returned the following day and reopened the boarded window to access the site. Finally, on June 3, workers found that the doors to the facility’s electric supply room had been forced open and the wiring stripped from its generators.
With copper going for about $3.50 a pound on the scrap market, the crooks reportedly made off with about $20,000 in metal. It might cost the business hundreds of thousands to repair the damage, accounting for supplies and labor.
Call Northeast Detectives at 215–686–3153 to report information about the case. ••
