Copper Cable Theft at Verizon Tower Nets Felony Charges in North Carolina

Two men face felony charges after cutting roughly 40 feet of Celeflex cable — damage a court warrant values at $18,000 — from a Verizon Wireless cell tower site in Liberty, North Carolina.

Randolph Hub, citing court documents, named the defendants as Julian Smith Martinez-Amador, 47, and Jefferson Ezequiel Garcia-Ramirez, 26. Randolph County sheriff's deputies arrested the pair while responding to a report of a larceny in progress at the Verizon tower on Starmount Road in Liberty.

The charges differ slightly between the two men, and the distinction matters for how the cases proceed.

A magistrate at the Randolph County Detention Center found probable cause for Martinez-Amador on:

• felony injuring utility wires or fixtures
• felony larceny
• misdemeanor first-degree trespassing
• misdemeanor injury to property involving non-ferrous metal

Garcia-Ramirez faces:

• felony injuring utility wires or fixtures
• felony injury to property to obtain non-ferrous metal
• felony larceny
• misdemeanor first-degree trespassing

Each man received a $5,000 secured bond. Both are expected back in Randolph County District Court in January.

What was actually cut?

The warrants filed in Randolph District Court identify the stolen material as Celeflex cable, used for 2G and 3G phone service, owned by Verizon Wireless. That detail carries weight beyond this single site. Carriers are actively retiring legacy 2G and 3G infrastructure as they refarm spectrum for 4G and 5G, and aging copper-based facilities have become a predictable target precisely because they are often less monitored than active equipment.

An $18,000 loss for 40 feet of cable works out to $450 per foot — a reminder that the cost to operators is dominated by restoration and labor, not the raw metal value.

How big is the copper theft problem?

Copper theft is a persistent cost line for US telecom operators. AT&T and Verizon regularly count the expense of restoring networks targeted by thieves chasing copper's scrap value.

AT&T put a number on it in April: more than 10,000 incidents last year, cumulatively valued at $82 million. Averaged out, that is roughly $8,200 per incident — and more than 27 incidents per day across AT&T's footprint alone.

Verizon has not disclosed a comparable figure in the source material, a gap worth noting when weighing the industry's exposure.

A second North Carolina case the same month

In a separate incident reported by WBTV, four men were arrested outside Charlotte for allegedly stealing $3,000 worth of AT&T copper wire.

The arrest turned on physical evidence rather than a tower alarm. Police found an unsecured fence and smelled burnt plastic coming from Charlotte-Mecklenburg school property. That led them to a pickup truck with four men inside. In the truck bed, officers saw a comforter with small copper wires poking out from beneath it, plus a cutting instrument on top of the wires. A search also turned up climbing gear, ropes, a harness and shoe spikes — equipment consistent with scaling utility infrastructure.

Police named the men as Son Nguyen, Ph Ren Y, Y Menh Nie and Vuh A. Investigators said the four intended to strip the copper down for sale. Each faces felony possession of stolen property and first-degree trespassing charges.

The climbing gear in the Charlotte case suggests organized site access, not opportunistic scavenging — and with copper scrap prices holding firm, carriers' exposure grows with every legacy copper span still in the ground before network retirement timelines complete.