Copper thieves are stripping Spain’s infrastructure at a pace not seen in years. Rising metal prices and security gaps have made construction sites easy targets. Railways and solar farms are also being hit. The fallout is disrupting electric vehicle charging and public transport, and undermining the country’s push for cleaner energy.
In Madrid’s Villa de Vallecas, construction crews have stopped putting company logos on their warehouses. Thieves have worked out where copper cable spools are stored. “We have night surveillance, but the robberies keep coming, especially now that copper is so valuable,” says Juan Manuel, a worker in the area. Security signs and video warnings do little to slow them down. In September 2026 alone, 35 copper thefts on Catalonia’s Rodalies railway line caused about 15,000 minutes, or more than 250 hours, of train delays, Europa Press reports.
The Ministry of the Interior’s crime data records 5,691 copper and conductor thefts in 2025 outside Catalunya and the Basque Country. That is nearly 150% more than in 2021, and 23% above 2024. Copper prices on the London Metal Exchange have reached a twelve-year high, trading between $14,300 and $14,700 per ton. The metal is easy to melt and hard to trace, a combination that feeds the black market.
Railways have long attracted copper thieves, but the crime wave is spreading. Adif, Spain’s rail infrastructure manager, logged 409 thefts in the first half of 2025, almost as many as in all of 2024. Construction sites and solar farms are now in the crosshairs, as are electric vehicle charging stations, especially in Catalunya. Europa Press reports that by August 31, 2026, Catalonia had recorded 280 copper thefts, about seven times the pre-pandemic yearly average. Police have detained 69 people under the Pla Via operation. Half the arrests came in August and September alone.
Electric mobility is taking a hit. One out of every three public electric car charging points in Catalunya is out of service, many after thieves ripped out copper cables. ANFAC’s latest barometer lists 3,628 inoperative points in the region, out of 17,821 nationwide. ANFAC cautions that copper theft is not behind every broken charger: some are down because of grid delays or technical faults. Catalan authorities say the Mossos d'Esquadra's Pla Via plan has begun to yield results, but delays and rising thefts show that prevention measures have yet to eliminate infrastructure vulnerabilities, Europa Press reports.
Solar farms are also under attack. “The cable of photovoltaic panels is now the most stolen,” says José Luis Vereda, captain of the Guardia Civil’s Judicial Police Technical Unit. These sites are often isolated and poorly guarded, making them easy targets. In Sevilla, the Guardia Civil recovered two tons of stolen copper from solar farms this summer. The damage can shut down entire plants, warns José Donoso, director general of the Unión Española Fotovoltaica.
Construction workers are feeling the strain. BauWatch’s 2026 crime report found that 80.4% of Spanish construction workers have faced theft on site this year, up from 75.8% in 2025. Copper is by far the basic target.
Catching the thieves is tough. Many thefts go unnoticed for days, especially on railways, where crews often find missing cables only during maintenance. Some criminals take one cable at a time to avoid quick detection. But when major thefts hit, as on the AVE line in Toledo in May 2025, train delays pile up and police respond in force.
Adif is testing drones and AI-powered cameras to monitor the tracks. Thousands of kilometers and many remote sites make it difficult to stop thefts before they happen. The Guardia Civil says copper theft is deeply rooted in Spain and often carried out by small groups, sometimes family-run, with some linked to Eastern Europe. Some gangs run their own melting operations, making the stolen metal almost impossible to trace once processed.
Scrap dealers face constant checks, but copper has no serial numbers and its origin is easy to disguise, making enforcement difficult. “We trust in the honesty of scrap dealers,” says Captain Vereda, though the reality is more complicated. In Madrid, scrap yards pay about nine euros per kilo for clean copper. Many now operate online and refuse to discuss their business.
Galicia, Catalunya, the Levante, southern Madrid, and northern Toledo have been hit hardest in recent months. The damage goes beyond money: delays and outages disrupt the economy and daily routines, while repairs add to the cost. As previously reported, Spain’s electric vehicle rollout already lacks enough charging points, and copper theft makes the shortfall worse. ANFAC and AEDIVE data show that Spain had 56,682 public charging points as of October 2026, well below the national goal of 124,000. Only 53,373 were working at the time, exposing the gap between installed and usable chargers.
Emilio Vizuete of the University of Barcelona’s Business School says copper is critical for conductors and semiconductors, as well as the digital economy. Its supply fluctuates, and the metal is easy to recycle, making it both valuable and vulnerable. Thieves know that, and authorities are scrambling to keep up as Spain’s infrastructure is stripped for parts. Catalan and central government officials have called for tougher penalties for cable theft and stronger protection for cable networks. They have also called for tighter controls on the trade in stolen copper, Europa Press reports.
