A serial copper thief introduced the subways to a screeching halt final month when his wire snipping escapades rendered tunnel site visitors lights ineffective, inflicting a whole lot of delays, the MTA revealed this week.
A scrap steel swindler, recognized as 55-year-old Efrain Velez, stopped service on three separate days in October when he snatched copper wires straight off the practice tracks on the Bronx 149th Road Grand Concourse station.
Officers revealed the wire-grabbing spree triggered the Grand Concourse tunnel site visitors lights to change from inexperienced to pink — finally delaying over 755 subway trains on the 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 strains.
“The first driver of October’s weekday on-time efficiency decline was a collection of atypical vandalism incidents, together with three dedicated by the identical particular person,” NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow revealed throughout an MTA board assembly on Wednesday, in keeping with Gothamist.
Velez couldn’t evade the cop-pers and was apprehended on October 14th after he was noticed by MTA building staff climbing over a gate and slicing practice wires close to the northbound 2 and 5 trains at Grand Concourse, a spokesperson from the NYPD advised The Put up.
Police apprehended Velez within the building room, the place they positioned him beneath arrest for legal mischief and trespassing.
It was certainly one of many arrests this yr for the infamous wirecutter — who was busted twice in January and February for robbing Bronx companies of steel and wires — and caught trespassing in a Union Sq. practice tunnel in a separate incident on October 2.
Velez isn’t the primary copper bandit within the enterprise. 63-year-old Prince Hayes has been known as a “legend” by regulation enforcement sources for his profession in steel thievery that has spanned practically 40 years and resulted in a complete ban from the MTA.
Copper wire, known as “mongo” on the road, goes for $5 a pound in keeping with the newest market studies and will be bought for money at recycling facilities and scrap yards.
