Two Stockton residents are wanted on felony warrants after allegedly stripping copper wire from agricultural irrigation pumps in Yolo County, according to the sheriff's office. Yian Chiem Saephanh and Hanh Xuan Nguyen each face warrants for conspiracy and grand theft in connection with the thefts.
The Yolo County Sheriff's Office shared details about the two suspects in a Facebook post, as reported by FOX40. Saephanh is wanted on felony warrants for both conspiracy and grand theft, while Nguyen faces the identical pair of charges, per the same report.
Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Yolo County Sheriff's Department or Sacramento Valley Crime Stoppers, according to the sheriff's office.
A Costly, Seasonal Problem for Central Valley Farmers
Copper-wire theft from irrigation equipment has become a recurring headache across California's farm country, and the damage often runs far beyond the value of the scrapped metal itself. Farmblox CEO Nathan Rosenberg told The Packer that irrigation pump sites face up to a 40 percent chance of being targeted by thieves in any given year. Rosenberg said repairing the damage typically costs growers between $8,000 and $100,000, not counting crop losses caused when water delivery gets cut off.
One farmer told Farmblox that a well on his property had been hit four times, with thieves eventually breaking through a steel vault installed specifically to protect the wiring, the outlet reported. In Tulare County, growers reported more than $1 million in agricultural theft losses and damages between January and September 2025, with most of that tied to stolen copper and equipment, per the same account. A 2026 report from ABC30 described a Tulare County farm targeted twice within 48 hours, leaving crops without water and causing significant damage.
Thieves Often Strike During Colder Months
Further north, the Colusa County Sheriff's Department has previously sought public help after suspects broke into agricultural irrigation pumps and electrical junction boxes to cut and strip copper wiring, disrupting water delivery to farmers, according to KRCR. That office said it was seeking information on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of copper wire damaged or stolen in recent months, and officials noted the thefts typically happen during the slower, colder months and may not even be reported until spring. Thieves often sell the scrap copper to recycling facilities in and out of state, KRCR reported, making the stolen material difficult to trace once it leaves the field.
Some growers have started fighting back with technology built specifically for this problem. Farmblox partnered with Bobby Rader, a former Agricultural Crimes Unit official, to develop Cop-R-Lock, a system that monitors irrigation equipment and can text growers and alert local Central Valley law enforcement the moment it detects a possible theft. Farmblox said the system had already caught and stopped two separate theft attempts in the weeks before The Packer's report was published, suggesting that early detection may be one of the few tools slowing down a crime wave that keeps cutting into farmers' water supplies and bottom lines.
