Garda believe raid may have smashed phone cabling theft racket

GARDAÍ believe they may have smashed a racket involving the theft of phone cabling from Eircom poles.

The cables are thought to have been been stolen for their copper casing value.

More than 150m of cabling was taken from poles at Rathurd, Ballyneety, Co Limerick, on the outskirts of the city last Friday.

Two men were arrested in the Patrickswell area at around 9am on Saturday when they were reportedly founding burning rubber casing from phone lines in order to retrieve the copper inside.

The men, in their 20s and from the Patrickswell area, were detained at Roxboro Road station and released later without charge.

Inspector Derek Smart said a file was being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Insp Smart said their investigation was now proceeding on the basis that the cabling found in the garda raid near Patrickswell may have been taken some days earlier from Eircom poles in Ballyneety.

Insp Smart said the two men were arrested after gardaí were alerted to smoke coming from a location near the N21 motorway.

“The men were found on a strip of land between the motorway and an old graveyard near Patrickswell. A quantity of cable was taken and it would appear that a fire was started to burn off rubber from the cable which covered the copper.”

Large quantities of copper are used in phone transmission lines. The value of copper has led to phone lines being targeted.

The theft in Ballyneety involved two different stretches of lines. Gardaí said a lorry would have been needed to remove the cable line, given its weight.