EoW July 2011

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EuroWire – July 2011 9
corporatenews
The escalating issue of cable theft globally
could be stopped in its tracks thanks to a
breakthrough in cutting-edge technology
that allows the forensic marking of
individual reels – a move increasingly
being demanded of manufacturers by
major cable users.
With worldwide prices of metals such as
copper and lead at an all-time high due
to demand from the Far East, thieves
have been targeting communications
infrastructure and causing massive
disruption as well as creating significant
costs for utilities networks in repair and
replacement.
The problem is lack of traceability, as law
enforcement officers, who frequently
know who is either stealing or buying the
stolen cable, are powerless to do anything
because it’s not possible to prove it is
stolen.
Traceability back to a particular location
is the key. Simply marking the outer
insulation with the owners details has
been found to be ineffective as thieves
frequently strip or burn it away to achieve
a high price from the scrap metal dealer.
But now, with a technological
breakthrough, award-winning risk
management and crime prevention
innovator, SmartWater Technology Ltd, has
solved the complex issue of marking cable
reels with its forensically coded liquid
during the manufacturing process and
recording the data in a way that will give
law enforcement agencies the ability to
tie thieves to their crimes – or, preferably,
deter them from committing those crimes.
SmartWater’s patented state-of-the-art
technology has already been successfully
deployed in the telecoms environment,
with the UK’s BT Openreach recently
securing its first conviction of cable
thieves, and British Transport Police also
securing its first conviction of a thief who
stole Network Rail cable. But in each case,
the solution had to be applied manually
and the demand from major cable users
for the application of SmartWater at the
manufacturing stage has grown steadily.
SmartWater chief executive, Phil Cleary,
said: “Law enforcement officers worldwide
frequently know where stolen cable is
being sold but, until now, haven’t had the
technological means to identify it as stolen
and tie the criminals to their crime.
“Our technological breakthrough can
change all that, allowing any cable
manufacturer to build the application
of SmartWater into their manufacturing
process and then be able to demonstrate
without doubt which customer was sold
each reel. We can do this across products
with multiple cores, in any part of the cable.
The benefits of this go further because,
for the first time, the manufacturers will
be able to pinpoint the place and time of
production of each reel, giving them the
kind of power over quality control they have
never had before and the ability to reject
warranty claims based on counterfeits of
their products.
“In terms of the criminal, be it a thief
or a scrap metal dealer who knowingly
buys stolen cable, traceability leads to
accountability.
“The sooner they realise that stealing
cable is no longer the low risk
enterprise they once considered it to
be, the sooner our many networks, from
communications to transport, will be safer
and significantly less prone to the huge
disruptions we are seeing today.”
The challenge has been to develop a
forensic ‘fingerprint’ that will withstand
the temperature of the extrusion process
and the harsh environmental conditions
that some cable is exposed to. Mr Cleary
added: “We tried using DNA but it just
wasn’t tough enough, as it was killed off
by the heat or daylight.”
SmartWater is able to stand up to the
high temperatures required in the
cable manufacturing process without
degradation. In the past the road block
in deploying the forensic liquid has been
in the ability to capture and store the
unique signatures that will be required
for each reel to make the deterrent and
crime-busting capabilities of the solution
a reality.
SmartWater Technology – UK
Fax: +44 870 242 4561
Email :
Website :
Stopping the cable
thieves
▲ ▲ A section of BT Openreach cable, indelibly marked with SmartWater. Use of the uniquely-coded liquid recently led
to the conviction of a gang of cable thieves in the UK
▲ ▲ A combined effort by law enforcement and industry
can stop cable thieves in their track.