Lord_Majestic - 5:20 pm on Apr 13, 2009 (gmt 0)

But if the thieves were stupid enough to be digging up fiber for copper, there's not much hope they were up to speed on world copper prices either...

Thieves might be stupid what cable to dig out, but they ain't stupid about current scrap prices - those have not fallen yesterday but for many months now. I think scrap prices have fallen 3-4 times to a point when it no longer makes sense doing such things.