Man arrested for stealing at least 100 metal grates from roadside gutters

Not really. Such thefts of whatever metal the perpetrators can get their hands on without regard to the cost, danger, and inconvenience caused to the public, have been going on for years.

2006-2007 was particularly crazy as the world economy was healthy, real estate development was overheated and there was a huge building spree, especially in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

Road-side gurders and playground equipment was being stolen for scrap.

The crash of 2008 helped bring down prices of scrap metal - a small flash of a silver lining.

I think browny1 has it

"There scrap value would be neglible, but serious pocket money for companies who had been contracted (and paid) to use newly sourced ones.

I hope the police keep investigating it til they find the buyers.

@ Brian

You got me guv!

@Kobe WBO, hands up! own up, the nation has found the person who write all of those bad or cringing jokes that come in Xmas crackers, haha!. In the UK since there has been a lot of power cable thefts from electric co and the railway, its now law that you have to provide ID when you go into a scrap yard, and they don't hand out cash any more its transferred into your bank account,

This was happening a few years back in my area.

Turned out the grates were being passed onto road construction / maintenance companies working in the countryside.

There scrap value would be neglible, but serious pocket money for companies who had been contracted (and paid) to use newly sourced ones.

Lotsa question marks over Construction Inc.

Donno,seems public service... maybe the phone zombies will learn to put phones away while walking after falling in couple of those.

“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”

― Anthony Robbins

Well, this is a new one. Just when you thought you've seen it all. I thought stealing bicycle seats was the topper.

The scrap yard should be at least cautioned for obvious stolen property.

Fall into one of them while walking or riding a bike and it could be very nasty indeed.

My area has no street lighting and very beautiful grates. This story is very worrying. I have a 4 year old. My area the manhole is about 30 meters deep.

Wow!

I never thought of that....

When you need beer money steal some road side grates and if someone falls in the sewer HEY they should have been looking where they were walking and not texting. Seriously this is a dangerous thing to do some child or elderly person could have fallen in and got hurt / killed.

@taj - I'm not surprised at the manufacturers price.

That is a padded price for public works contracts, as is the norm.

Thanks Disillusioned. I wasn't thinking about the fact that the 110,000 would refer to the original purchase price, rather than the scrap price. Those things have to be very heavy duty (and are heavy), so I'm not surprised at the manufacturers price.

stole six grates worth about 110,000 yen

These roadside grates cost nearly 200 bucks each to supply? Seriously? No wonder my city tax is so ridiculously high.

He would only have received a couple of hundred yen for them at the scrap yard. I'm sure they were not stainless steel. And, I agree with statement above that the scrap yard must have known their origins.

They caught him grate news. :0)

Hard times. Given the enormous number of surveillance cameras in operation in Japan, it's hard to imagine there are still people who think they can get away with such crimes.

but the salvage yard where he sold them didn't say something?