Louisville business owner spends thousands on repairs after property broken into twice by copper wire thieves

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – A Louisville business owner is spending thousands on repairs after his rental property was broken into twice by copper wire thieves.

Steve Diebold is the chairman of WireCrafters and rents out an industrial building in South Louisville to other businesses. Back in August when the building was vacant, thieves broke into one of the rear doors and stole all the copper wiring inside.

“The side door was basically smashed open and the robbers came in and pulled all the electrical wiring,” Diebold said. “All the copper they could find they took out of the building.”

Diebold took extra precautions to secure the building and paid around $50,000 to start having the electric wiring replaced, but that wasn’t the end.

About a month after the first burglary, the thieves struck again, this time forcing their way in through a loading dock. Thieves had once again taken all the electrical wiring from the building and even stole the copper water pipes, leaving the building with no electricity or water.

Diebold estimates it will cost another $70,000 to make all the repairs.

He’s now also renting two motion-censored security cameras, which is costing an additional $6,000 a month.

With no security footage from the two break-ins, finding the burglars will be an uphill battle.

“The police are kind of like yeah we’ll file a report but not much you can do unless you’ve got evidence of who was in here, if you’ve got any pictures or anything that proves someone was in this building,” Diebold said.

In the meantime, he won’t be able to rent to another tenant until the repairs are finished.

“You kind of wonder if you can ever stop them because no matter what you do, it’s a big property and if they want to get in, depending on how bold they are, they’ll just take what they want and leave,” Diebold said.

The copper thefts at Diebold’s property are one of hundreds in the Louisville area just this year. Through August, LMPD responded to 328 reports of metal theft in 2024.

This week Mayor Craig Greenberg announced the formation of a new task force aimed at tracking copper wire thefts and prosecuting thieves. KYTC estimates more than $1 million has been spent repairing street and highway lights damaged by wire thieves over the past two years.

A $15,000 cash reward for anyone providing information that leads to the conviction of copper wire thieves is being offered.

LMPD has already made one copper theft arrest since the new task force was announced.

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