Joseph Saidu Momoh
Major General Joseph Saidu Momoh, OOR, OBE served as President of Sierra Leone from November 1985 to April 29, 1992. Joseph Saidu Momoh was born on January 26, 1937 in Binkolo, Bombali District in the Northern Province of British Sierra Leone to Limba parents. In the early 1940s, his family moved to Freetown Wilberforce, his family were Christians. From 1951 to 1955, he was educated at the West African Methodist Collegiate School. Momoh was athletic and enjoyed playing tennis and volleyball, he played competative football for the Young Stars FC at Makeni and Blackpool FC. He completed his education at Technical Institute. In 1956, Momoh worked as third grade clerk in Sierra Leone's civil service, he resigned from this position in 1958. Momoh's military career began in 1958, when he enlisted in the Royal West African Frontier Force as a private, he trained at the Regular Officers Training School in Ghana and the Nigerian Military Training Academy. He travelled to the United Kingdom to train at the School of Infantry at Hythe and the Mons Officers Cadet School in Aldershot.
He was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Royal Sierra Leone Military Forces in 1963. He was elevated to the rank of major and given command at Kailahun. In 1969, Momoh became commanding officer of the First Battalion. A year he was promoted to the rank of Colonel, he was appointed deputy force commander in 1971 by President Siaka Stevens, after a coup attempt by Brigadier John Bangura.. Momoh succeeded Bangura as force commander in November 1971. In 1974, he was appointed minister of state with cabinet status, he became major-general in 1983. In 1985, Momoh became head of the All People's Congress; the same year, he succeeded President Siaka Stevens by becoming the only candidate in a one-party election in the form of a referendum on 8 October 1985. Momoh became the second President of Sierra Leone and he served from November 28, 1985 to April 29, 1992. Momoh declared a state of economic emergency early in his rule, granting himself greater control over Sierra Leone's economy, but he was not regarded as a dictator.
Instead, his people viewed him as far too weak and inattentive to the affairs of state, allowing his notoriously corrupt advisors to manipulate matters behind the scenes. Momoh has inherited a disintegrating economy from his predecessor and he was unable to stop the trend; the country's currency decreased in value. Sierra Leone reached the point under President Momoh where it could not afford to import gasoline and fuel oil, the country went without electricity for months at a time. On 23 March 1987, police reported that a group of conspirators was plotting to assassinate Momoh and stage a coup d'étet after they raided a house in Freetown and discovered a cache of weapons, including rocket launchers. James Bambay Kamara, the formidable Inspector General of the Sierra Leone Police, gave the order to arrest First Vice President Francis Minah, G. M. T. Kaikai, Jamil Sahid Mohamed and fifteen others. Minah was a personal friend of Momoh and while he did not believe that Minah was involved in the plot, he did not want to oppose Inspector General Kamara.
Momoh did not intervene on behalf of Minah. The Treason Trial went on for five months until October 1987 when the jury delivered a guilty verdict; the former First Vice President and 17 others were sentenced to death. Jamil Sahid Mohamed escaped to Lebanon, they were executed on warrants signed by Momoh. The SCIPA Group was an Israeli mineral company led by Nir Guaz that arrived in Sierra Leone in 1989. SCIPA bought its way into Momoh's favor by providing the government with loans and enabling Sierra Leone to enter into negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. On Christmas Eve 1989, Momoh had Guaz arrested, charged with economic sabotage and deported from Sierra Leone. In September 1991, after the start of the Sierra Leone Civil War, Momoh ushered in a new constitution which dismantled the one-party state established in 1978 and instituting multiparty democracy, he played a great part in dissolving tribalism. However, Momoh's efforts at reform came too late to rescue Sierra Leone from chaos.
He was overthrown in a military coup staged by Valentine Strasser, a 25-year-old army captain, in April 1992. In April 1992, a group of young soldiers marched to Freetown from the war front where they had been fighting the Revolutionary United Front led by Foday Sankoh. Incensed by terrible working conditions, unpaid salaries and a lack of government support they staged a coup d'état. On 29 April 1992, the soldiers, led by Captain Valentine Strasser announced the military coup on the radio. Momoh sought political asylum. Momoh was granted political asylum in neighboring Guinea by President Lansana Conté, he took up residence in a mansion in Conakry. Momoh died on August 2, 2003, at the age of 66, Momoh spent the last years of his life as a guest of the military government in neighboring Guinea, where he died in exile in 2003. Foday Sankoh had died a few days earlier. In 1971, Momoh was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, he was decorated as an Officer of the Order of the Rokel in 1974 by President Siaka Stevens.
Sierra Leone: Order of the Rokel United Kingdom: Order of the British Empire Reno, William. Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone, 1995. Tuchscherer, Konrad. “Joseph Saidu Momoh,” Encyclopedia of Modern Dictators, ed. by Frank J. Coppa, 2006, pp. 189–191. Tuchscherer, Konrad. “Joseph Saidu Momoh: A Legacy of Missed Opportun
De La Rue
De La Rue plc is a British banknote manufacturing, security printing of passports and tax stamps, brand authentication and paper-making company with headquarters in Basingstoke, England. It has a factory on the Team Valley Trading Estate in Gateshead, other facilities in Loughton and Bathford. There are overseas offices in Sri Lanka and Malta, it is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company was founded by Thomas de la Rue, who moved from Guernsey to London in 1821 and set up in business as a'Leghorn' straw hat maker as a stationer and printer. In 1831 he secured his business a Royal Warrant to produce playing cards. In 1855 it started printing postage stamps and in 1860 banknotes. In 1896, the family partnership was converted into a private company. In 1921, the de la Rue family sold their interests; the company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1947. Called Thomas De La Rue & Company, Limited, it changed its name in 1958 to The De La Rue Company Limited. A takeover bid for De La Rue was made by the Rank Organisation in 1968, but this was rejected by the Monopolies commission as being against the public interest.
In 1991 the company's name was changed again – this time to De La Rue plc. In 1965 De La Rue established a joint venture with the Italian printer and inventor Gualtiero Giori called De La Rue Giori. Based in Switzerland, the company specialized in building banknote printing equipment; the company printed banknotes for the Central Bank of Iran during the 1960s. In 1995, the company acquired Portals Limited, listed on the London stock market since 1904. For 300 years Portals had been regarded as the leading banknote paper manufacturer in the world, having manufactured banknote paper for the Bank of England since 1724. In 1997, De La Rue acquired Harrison and Sons, the stamp and banknote printers based in High Wycombe; the factory closed permanently in 2003. In early 2002, De La Rue purchased Smurfit Diamond Packaging Corporation of Sequoia Voting Systems, a California based company, a large provider of electronic voting systems in the United States, for $23 million. After losing money for three years in a business way out of the company's traditional lines, on March 2005 Sequoia was sold to Smartmatic, a multi-national technology company which had developed advanced election systems, voting machines included.
In 2003, the company acquired the Debden based banknote printing operations of the Bank of England. In 2003 and 2004 the company supplied banknotes to Iraq; the company was recognised by Hermann Simon as a role model for other small- to medium-sized businesses in his book Hidden Champions. The Highest Perfection, a history of De La Rue was published in 2011. Written by Peter Pugh for De La Rue, it covered the years 1712–2003. In August 2014, the company announced the appointment of Martin Sutherland as chief executive officer. In 2016, the Cash Handling division was sold to Privet Capital. In September 2016, the Bank of England issued its polymer five pound note, the first note from the bank to be printed on polymer. In December 2016, the company announced. In March 2018, the company sold the paper business. De La Rue retained a 10 % share in Portals. In April 2018, the company decided to appeal against the decision of the British government to manufacture passports in France, it subsequently decided against appealing.
De La Rue sells high-security printing technology for over 150 national currencies. De La Rue produces a wide range of other secure documents, including: Bank cheques Driving licences Passports Postage stamps Tax stamps Traveller's cheques Vouchers In 1843 De La Rue established its first overseas trade, as de la Rue's brother Paul travelled to Russia to advise on the making of playing cards. Thomas de la Rue's designs for playing cards are the basis for the modern standard design; the playing card business was sold to John Waddington in 1969. The company has printed postage stamps for the United Kingdom and some of its colonies, for Italy and for the Confederate States of America; some famous stamps such as the Cape of Good Hope triangulars were printed by De La Rue & Co. after Perkins Bacon fell out of favour with the postal authorities of the time. The first 50 years of postage stamp production were chronicled in John Easton's The De La Rue History of British and Foreign Postage Stamps 1855–1901.
De La Rue claims to have developed the first practical fountain pen in 1881 and was a leading manufacturer of fountain pens in Britain. Products were marketed under the "Onoto" brand. Production of fountain pens by De La Rue ceased in Britain in 1958 but continued for a few more years in Australia. During the 1930s De La Rue created a number of board games; these included a cricket game, produced in a number of different editions, Round The Horn, a game which re-created the annual race of grain-laden, square-rigged sailing cargo ships from Australia to London. The games used playing cards as part of the component set. List of mints Banknotes of the pound sterling Commonwealth banknote-issuing institutions Gemalto - a competitor Giesecke & Devrient – a competitor based in Munich Hong Kong Note Printing – founded in 1984 by Thomas De La Rue Official website History of De La Rue’s playing cards A research website with more detail of De La Rue company history Article and images of 1930s De La Rue Board Game, Stumpz
Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone
An Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone occurred in 2014, along with the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Liberia. On March 18, 2014 Guinean health officials announce the outbreak of a mysterious hemorrhagic fever "which strikes like lightning." It was identified as Ebola virus disease and spread to Sierra Leone by May 2014. The disease is thought to have originated when a child in a bat-hunting family contracted the disease in Guinea in December 2013. Consumption of African bushmeat, including rats and monkeys, is commonplace in Sierra Leone and West Africa in general. At the time it was discovered, it was thought that Ebola virus is not endemic to Sierra Leone or to the West Africa region and this epidemic represents the first time the virus has been discovered there. However, some samples taken for Lassa fever testing turned out to be Ebola virus disease when re-tested for Ebola in 2014, showing that Ebola had been in Sierra Leone as early as 2006. In 2014 it was discovered that samples of suspected Lassa fever showed evidence of the Zaire strain of Ebola virus in Sierra Leone as early as 2006.
Prior to the current Zaire strain outbreak in 2014, Ebola had not been seen in Sierra Leone, or in West Africa among humans. It is suspected that fruit bats are natural carriers of disease, native to this region of Africa including Sierra Leone and a popular food source for both humans and wildlife; the Gola forests in south-east Sierra Leone are a noted source of bushmeat. Bats are known to be carriers of at least 90 different viruses that can make transition to a human host. However, the virus has different symptoms in humans, it takes one to ten viruses to infect a human but there can be millions in a drop of blood from someone sick from the disease. Transmission is believed to be by contact with the blood and body fluids of those infected with the virus, as well as by handling raw bushmeat such as bats and monkeys, which are important sources of protein in West Africa. Infectious body fluids include blood, semen, breast milk, tears, urine, vaginal secretions and diarrhea. After a successful recovery from an Ebola infection, semen may contain the virus for at least two months.
Breast milk may contain the virus for two weeks after recovery, transmission of the disease to a consumer of the breast milk may be possible. By October 2014 it was suspected that handling a piece of contaminated paper may be enough to contract the disease. Contamination on paper makes it harder to keep records in Ebola clinics, as data about patients written on paper that gets written down in a "hot" zone is hard to pass to a "safe" zone, because if there is any contamination it may bring Ebola into that area. One aspect of Sierra Leone, alleged to have aided the disease, is the strong desire of many to have involved funeral practices. For example, for the Kissi people who inhabit part of Sierra Leone, it is important to bury the bodies of the dead near them. Funeral practices include rubbing the corpses down with oil, dressing them in fine clothes having those at the funeral hug and kiss the dead body; this may aid the transmission of Ebola, because those that die from Ebola disease are thought to have high concentrations of the virus in their body after they have died.
For the 2001 outbreak of Sudan virus in Uganda, attending a funeral of an Ebola victim was rated by the CDC as one of the top three risk factors for contracting Ebola, along with contact with a family member with Ebola or providing medical care to someone with a case of Ebola virus disease. The main start of the outbreak in Sierra Leone was linked to a single funeral in which the WHO estimates as many as 365 died from Ebola disease after getting the disease at the funeral. Bushmeat has been implicated in spreading Ebola disease, either by handling the raw meat or through droppings from the animals, it is the raw blood and meat, thought to be more dangerous, so it is those that hunt and butcher the raw meat that are more at risk as opposed to cooked meat sold at market. Health care workers in Sierra Leone have been warned not to go to markets. In late March 2014 there not confirmed cases in Sierra Leone; the government announced on 31 March 2014. The epidemic is thought to have started in late May when 14 people returned from a funeral of a traditional healer, trying to cure others with Ebola in Guinea.
The first person reported. She had died on 26 May. According to tribal tradition, her body was washed for burial and this appears to have led to infections in women from neighboring towns; the corpses were contagious after death, so precautions such as hazmat suits were needed. In this region the practice of kissing and touching the dead was implicated in helping to spread Ebola. However, two U. S. doctors who "followed all CDC and WHO protocols to the letter" still managed to contract the disease and it is not clear how they got the disease. By 27 May 2014 it was reported 5 people died from the Ebola virus and there were 16 new cases of the disease. Between 27 May 2014 and 30 May the number of confirmed, probable, or suspected cases of Ebola went from 16 to 50. By 9 June, the number of cases had risen to 42 known and 113 being tested, with a total of 16 known to have died from the disease by that time; the disease spread in the area, the local government hospital was overwhelmed. At that hospital 12 nurses died despite having the world's only Lassa fever isolation ward, according to the U.
N. The hospital proved instrumental early on, detecting the first case in the country and supporting the release of a research paper on Ebola. However, the growing number of cases there led to infection an
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in Austria, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, United States and other British Commonwealth countries. The shilling is used as a currency in four east African countries: Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia, it is the proposed currency that the east African community plans to introduce. The word shilling comes from old English "Scilling", a monetary term meaning twentieth of a pound, from the Proto-Germanic root skiljaną meaning'to separate, divide.' The word "Scilling" is mentioned in the earliest recorded Germanic law codes, those of Æthelberht of Kent. Slang terms for the old shilling coins include "bob" and "hog". While the derivation of "bob" is uncertain, John Camden Hotten in his 1864 Slang Dictionary says the original version was "bobstick" and speculates that it may be connected with Sir Robert Walpole. One abbreviation for shilling is s, it was represented by a solidus symbol, which may have stood for a long s or ſ, thus 1/9 would be one shilling and ninepence.
A price with no pence was sometimes written with a solidus and a dash: 11/–. The solidus symbol is still used for the Kenyan shilling, rather than sh. During the Great Recoinage of 1816, the mint was instructed to coin one troy pound of standard silver into 66 shillings, or its equivalent in other denominations; this set the weight of the shilling, its subsequent decimal replacement 5 new pence coin, at 87.2727 grains or 5.655 grams from 1816 until 1990, when a new smaller 5p coin was introduced. In the past, the English world has had various myths about the shilling. One myth was that it was deemed to be the value of a cow in a sheep elsewhere. A shilling was a coin used in England from the reign of Henry VII; the shilling continued in use after the Acts of Union of 1707 created a new United Kingdom from the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, under Article 16 of the Articles of Union, a common currency for the new United Kingdom was created. The term shilling was in use in Scotland from early medieval times.
The common currency created in 1707 by Article 16 of the Articles of Union continued in use until decimalisation in 1971. In the traditional pounds and pence system, there were 20 shillings per pound and 12 pence per shilling, thus there were 240 pence in a pound. Three coins denominated in multiple shillings were in circulation at this time, they were: two shillings, which adopted the value of 10 new pence at decimalisation. At decimalisation in 1971, the shilling coin was superseded by the new five-pence piece, of identical size and weight and had the same value, inherited the shilling's slang name of a bob. Shillings remained in circulation until the five pence coin was reduced in size in 1991. Between 1701 and the unification of the currencies in 1825, the Irish shilling was valued at 13 pence and known as the "black hog", as opposed to the 12-pence English shillings which were known as "white hogs". In the Irish Free State and Republic of Ireland the shilling coin was issued as scilling in Irish.
It was worth 1/20th of an Irish pound, was interchangeable at the same value to the British coin, which continued to be used in Northern Ireland. The coin featured a bull on the reverse side; the first minting, from 1928 until 1941, contained 75% silver, more than the equivalent British coin. The original Irish shilling coin ) was withdrawn from circulation on 1 January 1993, when a smaller five pence coin was introduced. Australian shillings, twenty of which made up one Australian pound, were first issued in 1910, with the Australian coat of arms on the reverse and King Edward VII on the face; the coat of arms design was retained through the reign of King George V until a new ram's head design was introduced for the coins of King George VI. This design continued until the last year of issue in 1963. In 1966, Australia's currency was decimalised and the shilling was replaced by a ten cent coin, where 10 shillings made up one Australian dollar; the slang term for a shilling coin in Australia was "deener".
The slang term for a shilling as currency unit was "bob", the same as in the United Kingdom. After 1966, shillings continued to circulate, as they were replaced by 10-cent coins of the same size and weight. New Zealand shillings, twenty of which made up one New Zealand pound, were first issued in 1933 and featured the image of a Maori warrior carrying a taiaha "in a warlike attitude" on the reverse. In 1967, New Zealand's currency was decimalised and the shilling was replaced by a ten cent coin of the same size and weight. Ten cent coins minted through the remainder of the 1960s included the legend "ONE SHILLING" on the reverse. Smaller 10-cent coins were introduced in 2006. Shillings were used in Malta, prior to decimalisation in 1972, had a face value of five Maltese cents. In British Ceylon, an shilling was equivalent to eight fanams. With the replacement of the rixdollar by the rupee in 1852, a shilling was deemed to be equivalent to half a rupee. On the decimalisation of the currency
Cent (currency)
In many national currencies, the cent represented by the cent sign is a monetary unit that equals 1⁄100 of the basic monetary unit. Etymologically, the word cent derives from the Latin word "centum" meaning hundred. Cent refers to a coin worth one cent. In the United States, the 1¢ coin is known by the nickname penny, alluding to the British coin and unit of that name. In the European Union, coins designs are chosen nationally, while the reverse and the currency as a whole is managed by the European Central Bank. In Canada, production of the 1¢ coin was ended in 2012. A cent is represented by the cent sign, a minuscule letter "c" crossed by a diagonal stroke or a vertical line: ¢. Cent amounts from 1 cent to 99 cents can be represented as one or two digits followed by the appropriate abbreviation, or as a subdivision of the base unit. Back in the days of typewriters, the cent sign appeared as the shift of the 6 key; the cent sign has not survived the changeover from typewriters to computer keyboards.
There are alternative ways, however, to create the character in most common code pages, including Unicode and Windows-1252: On DOS- or Windows-based computers, hold Alt while typing 0162 or 155 on the numeric keypad. If there is no numeric keypad, as on many laptops, type A2 in Windows Wordpad followed by Alt+X and copy/paste the resulting ¢ into the target document. For the US International keyboard: <Right Alt> <Shift> c. On Macintosh systems, hold ⌥ Option and press 4 on the number row. On Unix/Linux systems with a compose key, Compose+|+C and Compose+/+C are typical sequences; the cent sign has Unicode code point: U+00A2 ¢ CENT SIGN, U+FFE0 ￠ FULLWIDTH CENT SIGN. When written in English, the cent sign follows the amount, in contrast with a larger currency symbol, placed before the amount. For example, 2¢ and $0.02, or 2c and €0.02. Examples of currencies around the world featuring centesimal units called cent, or related words from the same root such as céntimo, centésimo, centavo or sen, are: Argentine peso Aruban florin Australian dollar Barbadian dollar Bahamian dollar Belize dollar Bermudian dollar Bolivian boliviano Brazilian real Brunei dollar Canadian dollar Cayman Islands dollar Chilean peso.
Centavos exist and are considered in financial transactions. Cook Islands dollar Cuban peso East Caribbean dollar Eritrean nakfa Estonian kroon European Union's euro – the coins bear the text "EURO CENT". Greek coins have ΛΕΠΤΑ on the obverse of the others; the actual usage varies depending on the language. Fijian dollar Guyanese dollar Indonesian rupiah Jamaican dollar Kenyan shilling Lesotho loti Liberian dollar Malaysian ringgit Mauritian rupee Mexican peso Moroccan dirham Namibian dollar Netherlands Antillean gulden New Zealand dollar Panamanian balboa Peruvian nuevo sol Philippine peso Seychellois rupee Sierra Leonean leone Singapore dollar South African rand Sri Lankan rupee Surinamese dollar Swazi lilangeni New Taiwan dollar Tanzanian shilling Tongan paʻanga Trinidad and Tobago dollar Ugandan shilling United States dollar Uruguayan peso Zimbabwean dollarExamples of currencies featuring centesimal units not called cent British pound – divided into 100 pence since 1971 Bulgarian lev (as stotinka, Bulgarian: стотинка Chinese Yuan/Renminbi – divided into 100 fēn.
Croatian kuna – divided into 100 lipa Danish krone – divided into 100 øre Estonian mark – divided into 100 penni Indian rupee – divided into 100 paise Israeli new shekel – divided into 100 agorot Macao pataca – divided into 100 avos Macedonian denar – divided into 100 deni Norwegian krone – divided into 100 øre Pakistani rupee – divided into 100 paise Polish złoty – divided into 100 groszy Romanian and Moldovan leu – divided into 100 bani Russian ruble – divided into 100 kopeks Saudi riyal. Examples of currencies which do not feature centesimal units: Costa Rican colón – no fractional denomination in circulation since the 1980s divided into 100 céntimos. Czech koruna – no fractional denomination in circulation divided into 100 hellers Japanese yen – no fractional denomination in circulation divided into 100 sen and 1000 rin. South Korean Won no fractional denomination in circulation divided into 100 jeon. Icelandic króna – no fractional denomination in circulation divided into 100 eyrir. Kuwaiti dinar – divided into 1000 fils Omani rial – divided into 1000 baisa Mauritanian ouguiya – divided into 5 khoums Malagasy ariary – divided into 5 iraimbilanjaExamples of currencies which use the cent symbol for other purpose: Costa Rican colón – The common symbol'¢' is used locally to represent'₡', the proper
Sierra Leonean dollar
The dollar was a currency issued in Sierra Leone between 1791 and 1805. It was issued by the Sierra Leone Company; the dollar was pegged to sterling at a rate of 1 dollar 2 pence. In 1791, coins were issued in denominations of 10, 20, 50 cents, 1 penny and 1 dollar; the 1 cent and 1 penny were minted in the rest in silver. All the coins featured a lion on the obverse and two shaking hands, one white, one black, on the reverse
Metal theft
Metal theft is "the theft of items for the value of their constituent metals". It increases when worldwide prices for scrap metal rise, as has happened due to rapid industrialization in India and China. Apart from precious metals like gold and silver, the metals most stolen are non-ferrous metals such as copper, aluminium and bronze; however cast iron and steel are seeing higher rates of theft due to increased scrap metal prices. One defining characteristic of metal theft is the motivation. Whereas other items are stolen for their extrinsic value, items involved in metal theft are stolen for their intrinsic value as raw material or commodities. Thefts have negative consequences much greater than the value of the metal stolen, such as the destruction of valuable statues, power interruptions, the disruption of railway traffic. Scrap metal has drastically increased in price over recent years. In 2001, ferrous scrap sold for $77 a ton, increasing to $300/ton by 2004. In 2008, it hit nearly $500/ton.
Some elected officials and law enforcement officials have concluded that many metal thefts are by drug addicts stealing metal in order to fund their addictions. Some officials believe that many of these drug-related metal thefts are caused by methamphetamine users. Another explanation for the phenomenon is the unusually high price of non-ferrous metals coupled with elevated levels of unemployment. Regardless of the reason, the industrialization of developing nations helps to increase the demand for scrap metal. In the fourth quarter of 2008, world market prices for metals like copper and platinum dropped steeply. Although there is anecdotal evidence that this price decrease has led to fewer metal thefts, strong empirical research on the exact nature of the relationship between commodity prices and metal thefts is still lacking; some have argued that the "genie is out of the bottle" now and drops in commodity prices will not result in corresponding drops in thefts. In fact, it is possible that thefts may increase to compensate for the loss in value.
As of December 2014 according to The National Insurance Crime Bureau the number of insurance claims for metal theft has been decreasing in the U. S because of dropping scrap metal prices; as of 2014 in the United States alone, metal theft costs the US economy $1 billion annually, according to Department of Energy estimates. As of 2008 It was estimated that South Africa lost 5 billion Rand annually due to metal theft; as of 2008 metal theft was the fastest growing crime in the UK with the annual damage to industry estimated at £360m. Thieves cause damage far in excess of the value they recover by selling stolen metal as scrap. For example, thieves who strip copper plumbing and electrical wiring from houses render the residences uninhabitable without expensive, time-consuming repairs. Requiring scrap metal buyers to record the photo IDs of scrap metal sellers, record scrap metal transactions may reduce the rate of metal theft. Paying scrap metal sellers by check rather than cash may reduce the rate of metal theft.
Utility companies who are the targets of metal theft can electroplate coding on to copper wire, which can positively identify the wire as stolen if the insulation is burned off. Anything made of metal has value as scrap metal, can be stolen: Manhole covers Copper wiring, or copper pipes from houses or other buildings Utility company wiring and transformers Aluminum or stainless steel beer kegs Bronze or brass statues or monuments Catalytic converters from motor vehicles Air conditioner units Rails In Australia in 2008, 8 tonnes of copper wiring, believed to be stolen from a variety of locations including rail tracks, power stations and scrap metal depots, was seized on its way to the Asian black market. In November 2011 a person tried to hand-saw a hot electrical line in a subway tunnel in Vienna. A fire arose; the thief was hurt. In November 2015 a man burnt to death in Vienna in an empty building, one which had a 100 kV cable that went through the basement; the police assumed that they had been attempting to steal copper.
In May 2013 the Westbahn near Amstetten had to be closed for safety reasons. In July 2013 in Lower Austria 160 metres of copper wire worth less than €1,000 was stolen from a railway transformer station; the damage to the railways electronics cost €140,000. In May 2016, police caught several people that had stolen several tons of copper wire from a substation and caused 400,000 € worth of damage in Lower Austria. In Quebec, during May 2006, thieves stole sections of copper roofing and wiring from four Quebec city churches, two being St. Charles de Limoilou and St. Francois d'Assise; the thieves were discovered in action on whereupon they fled. High copper prices are believed to be the reason for the thefts. Repairs were expected to cost more than $40,000. In October 2010, a 300-pound bronze bell was stolen in Nova Scotia. Thieves removed the bell from a monument in Roseway Cemetery; the bell was part of the Roseway United Memorial Church, built in 1912, until it was demolished in 1993. It was recovered in a Halifax-area scrapyard October 6, 2010.
In September 2011, Ontario, experienced a four-hour power outage north of the city when thieves stole power transmission wires. 327 bronze markers stolen from Theresienstadt concentration camp cemetery in mid-April 2008, with 700 more stolen the next week. A scrap metal deal
Sierra Leone
