TNB subcontractor among four nabbed for cable theft

ALOR SETAR: Police arrested four men, including a Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) subcontractor, for stealing TNB electric cables near Baling on Friday.

Baling district police chief Supt Shamsudin Mamat said two local men and a foreign man, aged between 21 and 39, were nabbed in a raid on a shed behind a house in the Charok Nau Public Housing area at about 9.30 am on Friday.

"During the raid conducted with TNB officers, the three suspects were caught removing copper wires from the (power) cables that had been cut in the shed.

"Police confiscated two barrels of paint, 87 wire cable rods, 24 black wires, a cutting machine, knives, screwdrivers, and items believed to have been used to cut the cables," he said in a statement here today.

He said the team then raided a nearby house and arrested the 59-year-old TNB subcontractor, who has a licence to handle cable installation work.

"We also confiscated a lorry and found that three of the men who were arrested were employees of the suspect (subcontractor) and that the copper wires that had been removed were believed to have been sold to a scrap store in Penang," he said.

Shamsudin said TNB estimated the loss at RM30,000.

He also said a check found that one of the suspects had a criminal record related to drugs and a urine test conducted on another turned out positive for methamphetamine.

He said all the suspects have been remanded until Jan 26.

-- BERNAMA