The Catalan police want only professionals to sell copper and for payments to be made via bank transfer. They aim to close the legal outlet for stolen metal on railway tracks.
The Mossos d'Esquadra are calling for stricter regulations on the buying and selling of metals, as copper thefts increase with rising market prices. According to the Catalan police, thieves can sell the stolen metal in the legal circuit without resorting to the black market.
Intendant Joan Salamaña, deputy chief of the Comisaría Superior de Seguridad Ciudadana, proposes specific changes. Among them is limiting this trade to professionals, so that individuals cannot sell cable, sometimes stripped or burnt.
“It is necessary to have regulatory changes that help to regulate this space for buying and selling metals because right now thieves don’t even have to go to the black market to sell; they can do it in the legal market.”
The Mossos also request that the origin of the metal must be verified and that payments should be made via bank transfer, not in cash, to trace the copper. According to the intendant, these measures are already in place in other countries, but are lacking in Spain.
The Plan Vía, activated in July to combat copper theft in railway infrastructures, has already focused on waste managers and metal warehouses. In these businesses, the police have conducted 61 inspections, filed 25 complaints, and seized three shipments of copper.
Adif has filed 409 complaints for thefts in the first half of the year, a figure almost equal to the total for 2025, which was a record year since 2018. Catalonia is the region with the highest number of thefts, accounting for 37.8% of the total.
The Catalan police have made 80 arrests this year, of which 45 occurred in the last three months since the deployment of the Plan Vía. Additionally, they have achieved two prison sentences, three restraining orders from the railway network, and another six complaints.
October has been the first month of the year in which reported incidents have decreased, with 47 thefts, compared to 67 in September and 54 in August. The thefts also caused fewer service interruptions, twelve in October compared to 22 in September. Salamaña attributes the improvement to joint work with Adif, which has strengthened surveillance of the network and secured vulnerable points.
The thefts mainly affect the metropolitan area and do not only occur on the 1,700 kilometers of Rodalies tracks and the 300 of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (FGC). According to police data, 30% of the incidents occur in construction areas.
The profile of those arrested fits that of individual criminals. 96% are men and have a history of property crimes. According to Salamaña, they do not operate under the orders of any organized group, but rather out of “opportunism.” The tightening of penalties is also on the table, although the intendant prefers prevention over punishment.
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