Palm Springs police are asking the public for help identifying a man suspected of stealing copper wire after releasing footage showing him caught on camera during the theft. Investigators say about $34,000 worth of copper wiring and telecommunications equipment was stolen or damaged across the city between October 19 and October 28, and that more than one person was involved.
According to NBC Palm Springs, the Palm Springs Police Department released footage of one person caught on camera during the theft, though police say the scheme involved more than one person. The department has not released the specific locations of the thefts or offered a further description of the suspect beyond the footage itself.
Police say the thefts occurred throughout Palm Springs, but have not specified which neighborhoods or properties were targeted. Anyone who recognizes the man in the footage is asked to call Palm Springs police at (760) 327-1441 and reference report number 2610p-6311.
A Recurring Target for Thieves in the Desert
This is not the first copper theft case to surface in the Coachella Valley this year. In September, Riverside County sheriff's deputies arrested two men, 27-year-old Luis Alberto Mendez and 29-year-old Jesus Rabelar Miranda, after the pair was allegedly spotted on the roof of a Rite Aid store in Coachella, the same NBC Palm Springs outlet reported. Both men were booked on suspicion of conspiracy, burglary and vandalism in that case, though nothing in that report ties them to this week's Palm Springs investigation.
Copper theft has become enough of a statewide problem that regulators and utilities have taken notice. An NCTA survey cited by Spectrum Local News counted nearly 6,300 telecommunications theft and vandalism incidents statewide in 2025, more than double the number reported in Texas, with Los Angeles alone logging more than 1,100 of those incidents. The same report described a Los Angeles bust, announced by the California Attorney General's office, in which authorities recovered about 3,000 feet of stolen telecommunications wire valued at more than $100,000.
AT&T Has Logged Thousands of Thefts Statewide
AT&T has its own numbers illustrating the scale of the problem. NPR reported that the company recorded more than 10,400 copper-wire theft incidents nationwide in a single year, roughly 200 a week, with about 4,300 of those in California alone. AT&T has also offered a $20,000 bounty for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people involved in copper cable thefts, per the same NPR report.
A separate accounting from Post Alarm Systems put California's AT&T-reported incidents at 2,200 in 2024, up sharply from just 71 in 2021. Wireless Estimator, reviewing an AT&T filing with federal regulators, found that 415 of 600 copper-facility incidents tracked between late April and late June of this year were attributed to copper theft, collectively affecting 1,697 individual circuits, mostly residential legacy voice service.
The problem is not new to the region. A 1989 Los Angeles Times report described copper-wire thefts that periodically cut phone service to residents and businesses in several desert towns, sometimes for as long as a month, as thieves made off with about 55 miles of wire in San Bernardino County and another 80 miles in Riverside County, worth more than $100,000 by one estimate. That decades-old account noted salvage yards at the time paid up to $1.04 a pound for copper.
For now, Palm Springs investigators are focused on identifying the man in this month's footage. Anyone with information is urged to contact Palm Springs police at the number above and reference the case report.
