Tip to copper wire thieves:


          Not the live ones

10,000-volt shock leaves cable thief to be ID'd by prints from severed hand

Reuters
Updated: 4:32 p.m. CT Oct 8, 2007

BERLIN - A thief in Germany was charred beyond recognition by a 10,000-volt electric shock when he tried to steal a live copper cable, authorities said Monday.

Police in the western city of Duisburg found the 32-year-old man's blackened remains by a set of cable cutters and a pile of cables he had already stolen.

Only because one of his hands survived incineration were officers able to identify the man as a German of Kazakh origin.

"His fingerprints were already logged on police files," a local police spokesman said. "The force of the shock was so great that the hand was severed from his body."

© 2007 Reuters Limited.


John