Creator1

I have owned and operated a few businesses in my life, my most recent business was an HVAC shop that myself and a business partner purchased. Ultimately, due to health reasons and what now looks like potential embezzlement, we had to close the shop down.

There are still some things you are on the hook for when a business closes, one of those things is rent. Sometimes you can negotiate a settlement, for instance, I asked to pay 6-month of rent upfront and leave the lease. The property manager said ‘no’ but agreed to list it and get a new tenant to replace me as soon as possible.

That being said, until then (which seems like it will be the end of the week), I am responsible for the property to an extent. So, when I got a call on Friday morning that there had been a break in, I went to the site immediately. The Property manager had stated that there was a hole in the roof and there was no power.

When I arrived I found that there wasn’t a hole in the roof but instead destroyed drop ceiling. In there defense, it does look like a hole in the roof.

I also found that the wires to the panel had all been cut, and freon lines to the AC unit had been cut. The camera system was also stolen, and the water was shut off.

I had an electrician come in and look at the place, initially it appeared that this was a copper baron. Which is someone who will break into your building, strip it for every piece of copper they can in order to sell it to recycling centers and pawn shops. After looking around though, that didn’t seem likely to the electricians or myself. We have all worked at construction sites before and have experienced this. When these people come in, they take EVERYTHING, every single ounce of copper they can get their hands on.
You can see in one of these pictures just how much copper was actually left.

The electricians also said that that whoever did this only took a single large wire from the panel, which isn’t something someone looking for copper would do (again, they’d take literally all of it.) They also showed places where cuts were made with live wires, large arc marks are left behind.

‘Someone did this out of anger, or just to be dicks.’ The electricians summarized.

The day after I had the locks rekeyed, the dumpster was caught on fire. The trash company responded and flipped the dumpster over leaving it overturned in the parking lot, nice apocalyptic appeal for the new owners!

 I find a few things interesting about what happened here;

1. There was no forced entry. No broken doors, windows, walls, roofs, ceiling, glass, or anything else was forcibly moved open or broken. The keys had been confiscated when we closed down (or so we thought.) It is likely that there was a key still floating around. I hadn’t seen this as too much of an issue as we had already liquidated everything and the building hadn’t had any previous issues. The building is now re-keyed. But this suggests it was a former employee as only 3 of them had access to the building.
2. Everything that was destroyed or messed with were things that my prior employees have had experience with, such as ripping out the refrigerant lines, shutting off the water. These were all things they knew how to destroy or mess with quickly. The drop ceiling that was collapsed was right by an access point to a water heater. Which leads me to suspect whoever was in there was trying to mess with that as well before they fell through.
   
3. The gas wasn’t touched. I think this is because each one of my employees knew how serious gas was. It’s one thing to vandalize a former workspace, but messing with gas can kill people, destroy buildings and other bad things. I think the vandals knew that and chose not to touch the gas or furnace (which still works great.)
4. Cameras were stolen as well as recording equipment. This was locked away and only certain employees knew where it was.
5. The same day the break in occurred one of my former employees was pulled over and a ticket was filed for them driving without proof of registration and insurance. During the auction I had been shorted a vehicle. When I had asked management about the van, they had told me the prior mgmt (my father-in-law) had sold it for cash almost a year ago, now. It now seems likely to me that they have the old van and were pulled over with it.

What happened:

Here’s my theory. They (whoever it was) was driving one of my shops vans and were pulled over. They likely said something about this being a company van and they didn’t have the documentation (this has happened before actually, legitimately). Normally, they come back to the shop and we send in the registration, insurance, etc and deal with any fine if applicable. So, I think they attempted to go to the shop to find the documents. Upon finding the building completely empty, I think they destroyed parts of the building.

I also think whoever did this attempted to make it look like a wire raid, but failed. Even the electrician said it doesn’t make sense.  My neighbor, who is a retired police detective walked the site with me and believes my theory has some merit. He’s helping me navigate the paperwork for an investigation with the local PD.

What are your thoughts, does anyone reading this think this is suspicious, or did I just run into the world’s worst copper thief?