A security camera captures three intruders breaking into a solar farm at night in Til-Til, Chile.
Photographer: Cristóbal Olivares/BloombergThieves Are Stealing Chile’s Solar Panels and Cashing In on the Black Market
A solar energy boom in this narrow stretch of the Andes is marred by a wave of sophisticated theft as panels and associated copper cables disappear into black markets.
Just before midnight, two men in white coveralls and black gloves scale an electric fence at a solar farm in Chile’s Atacama Desert, then slip soundlessly into rows of sleek panels. Others use a poultry shear and electric angle grinder to breach the main gate. Three pickups without license plates pull in so the gang can load up their loot and race away.
The thieves typically have less than an hour before police arrive to disable cameras, slice cables and extract dozens of panels before vanishing into the dunes. In this case, there was only one security guard, who was instructed to hide in case of an intrusion. They tied him up anyway.