Adif has difficulties finding copper and replacing all the stolen cable

BarcelonaAdif is struggling to keep up with copper thieves. The state-owned company, which manages the Catalan railway network, is facing serious logistical difficulties in finding the copper cable needed to replace all the material stolen from it in recent months. As ARA has learned, this year's flood of thefts, which exceeds all records to date, has pushed the company's reserve stocks to the limit, and it is now scrambling to cover all the needs required by the network and keep the system running.

The causes of this shortage are due to a double factor: on one hand, "extraordinary" criminal activity and, on the other, the saturation of the international conductor manufacturing market. According to sector sources, the stock of cable that Adif has "is sized to handle the contingencies and breakdowns of daily management, but not to respond to a peak of incidents of this magnitude." Currently, according to the companies consulted, delivery times for orders of this type of cable range between three and five months. Thus, faced with the impossibility of receiving new factory material, the manager must resort to more imaginative solutions.

One of those already being put into practice is taking cable intended for new works or projects (which have yet to come into operation) from any point in the State to bring it to Catalonia, to the areas that have suffered the most thefts. A way of "plugging holes" that allows for the emergency restoration of traffic, but which, at the same time, according to all the sources consulted, could delay the start-up of the affected works if the new cable reels ordered do not arrive on time.

Wave of robberies

Valls, Roda de Berà, Estació de França or the entire R3 route are just some of the locations that have been in the news in recent weeks due to meters of stolen cable. The company is openly "very concerned": between January and August, Adif registered 229 reports of such thefts, a historical record that far exceeds the 184 robberies that occurred throughout last year. Since 2019, the manager admits that about 200 kilometers of cable have been stolen from it in practically 700 robberies.

The thefts affect the entire State, but Adif acknowledges that they have a particularly strong impact in Catalonia. In April they recorded 40 thefts, in July 35, and in August 45. "Just this 2026 we have had 63 cable thefts and 5 reports of vandalism on the R3, and we see particularly sensitive areas, such as the surroundings of the Estació de França," confirm the company's spokespersons.

From the copper industrial sector, they highlight that it is a highly specialized material, which is often made ad hoc for the needs of each line, which prevents having large standardized quantities in warehouses to serve quickly. "These signaling cables have from 2 to 48 conductors, and are the most coveted by thieves because they are easy to cut and do not electrocute you," confirms Rafael González de la Aleja, head of national market sales for the railway division of Prysmian, a leading company in the manufacture of this type of wiring. "Copper trades at about 12.8 euros per kilo and for a 30-meter section they barely extract half a kilo, but with that, the thieves get by," he details.

Other solutions underway

Given the persistence of this problem, Adif is also studying other technical and security alternatives to protect the tracks and cables. One of the possibilities is to change the copper for other materials. Sector sources point out that in the case of electric cables for catenaries and substations, the substitution with other aluminum alloys has been considered, but it is an alternative that "requires a long process". Furthermore, this option is "impossible" for communications and signaling cables, which also require copper.

Another path would be "physical protection", with fences or security cameras to hinder access to the tracks or even by concreting the ducts where the cables pass to make them more inaccessible. This, however, would involve a large amount of resources and, furthermore, could slow down the process of resolving incidents. "Putting up fences does not guarantee that thieves will not enter and if it is concreted it would be much more complicated to locate and repair the breakdown because first it would be necessary to break all the concrete", the same sources point out. This solution –burying or concreting the ducts– is common in other countries, such as Germany or the Netherlands and has also been used in Spain on a specific basis in some sections of the high-speed rail. On the other hand, according to the sector, it is a measure ruled out for large-scale implementation.

Thus, for the moment the only containment relies on the Security Track Plan, which is currently coordinated with the Mossos d'Esquadra and Adif's private security and which has already allowed the arrest of some copper thieves in the act. Furthermore, the Ministry of Transport has also requested to reform article 240 of the Penal Code to toughen the penalties for theft in critical infrastructure.