Scrap Metal

A stolen sculpture by British artist Henry Moore valued at $770,000 could end up being sold for scrap, officials have speculated. The 22-inch bronze sundial from 1965 was taken this week from the Henry Moore Foundation, the sculpture's former home-turned-museum in Hertfordshire near London. This is the second time a Moore sculpture has been lifted from the 72-acre property: In 2005 thieves used a crane to steal the 12-foot bronze statue "Reclining Figure," worth an estimated $4.5 million.

State officials said Thursday that they will start a task force to target problems posed by scrap metal recycling operations across California, which have been loosely regulated and linked to environmental contamination and numerous fires and explosions in recent years. The move by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control marks the first large-scale attempt to coordinate oversight of such operations, which handle hazardous metals and can generate toxic dust that pollutes the air and the ocean.

WCS International, an Anaheim scrap metal exporter, said it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the sale of 3 million shares and 1.5 million warrants in an effort to raise from $12 million to $15 million. The company, whose name is being changed to Adams International Metals Corp., wants to sell the shares and warrants in an offering of 1.5 million units.

A stolen sculpture by British artist Henry Moore valued at $770,000 could end up being sold for scrap, officials have speculated. The 22-inch bronze sundial from 1965 was taken this week from the Henry Moore Foundation, the sculpture's former home-turned-museum in Hertfordshire near London. This is the second time a Moore sculpture has been lifted from the 72-acre property: In 2005 thieves used a crane to steal the 12-foot bronze statue "Reclining Figure," worth an estimated $4.5 million.

A downtown scrap metal company containing volatile titanium and magnesium erupted in flames Tuesday, creating huge billows of smoke, forcing employees of nearby businesses to flee and causing a massive traffic jam on a nearby freeway during rush hour. The fire broke out about 4:30 p.m. in a scrap yard at Monico Alloys Inc. when sparks from a welding torch landed on titanium shavings, said Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Steve Ruda.

Wilmington boat owner Claire Randall used to clean her 39-foot trimaran with a magnet. She would pick up tiny metal filings from her deck every time the scrap metal company a few hundred feet across the water loaded a ship. And she recently bought earplugs to help block the noise made by Hugo Neu-Proler's operations at all times of the day and night. For two years, Randall and the L.A. Harbor Boatowners Assn.

An employee of a Wilmington scrap metal shop has been booked on murder charges in the shooting death of a man who had loaded his pickup truck with stolen scrap metal, police said Saturday. Richard Zacher, 43, whose family owns the scrap shop, was held without bail at the Los Angeles Police Department's Parker Center Jail after the shooting, which occurred about 1 p.m. Friday, said Police Sgt. Dan Pugel of the department's Harbor Division.

A downtown scrap metal company containing volatile titanium and magnesium erupted in flames Tuesday, creating huge billows of smoke, forcing employees of nearby businesses to flee and causing a massive traffic jam on a nearby freeway during rush hour. The fire broke out about 4:30 p.m. in a scrap yard at Monico Alloys Inc. when sparks from a welding torch landed on titanium shavings, said Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Steve Ruda.

Like many entrepreneurs, Nathan Frankel sees money where others see nothing. In the last five years, he has built a $15-million-a-year business selling scrap metal from abandoned appliances, assembly line discards and used car parts. So when Chinese companies offered to pay a 30% premium a few years ago for scrap to feed their booming factories, Frankel jumped at the opportunity.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has a special interest in supporting two state bills aiming to stop the widespread and rampant theft of valuable metals, including copper wiring and pipes. Sometime around 4 a.m. July 26, thieves climbed the walls of four office buildings in Santa Fe Springs and stripped large air-conditioning units of their copper wires, insulation and fans. One of the buildings hit: the sheriff's Commercial Crimes Bureau.

NEW YORK -- When dozens of little American flags began disappearing from Civil War veterans' graves at a cemetery in Hudson, N.Y., this month, locals fumed. Who could be so callous, especially in the days surrounding Independence Day? Thanks to surveillance cameras, a stepped-up police presence and forensic sleuthing, officials have the answer: woodchucks, also known as groundhogs. The animals apparently were burrowing beneath the ground, then taking the flags into their subterranean homes, where investigators poking cameras into the dirt have spotted some of the missing banners.

Los Angeles city prosecutors Wednesday took the unusual step of filing criminal charges against the owners of three metal recycling businesses, accusing them of illegally handling hazardous waste and allowing toxic chemicals to be released into storm water. "These facilities pose a significant threat to human health and the environment," said Patty Bilgin, who heads the Los Angeles city attorney's environmental justice unit. "These are toxic chemicals. We don't know where they are going.

Naomi Wormell is a vicar, not a vigilante. But these days, she finds it hard to choose Christian charity over some swift -- and terrible -- retribution. The centuries-old church she leads in this quiet English village has fallen victim to a plague sweeping across Britain. Like hungry locusts, metal thieves have repeatedly attacked St. Mary's Church, swooping down on its roof in the dead of night and stripping away large sections of its Victorian-era lead cladding. Six times over a four-month period, the heartsick residents of Hatfield Broad Oak awoke to discover yet another piece of their history stolen, most likely to be melted down and sold for scrap.

Rebecca Black's infamous "Friday" video has topped all other YouTube videos of 2011 with 180 million views. The Google Inc. video-sharing site announced its most-viewed clips of the year Tuesday. The 14-year-old Black was turned into a viral video celebrity after her parents paid a production company to make the music video for her. "Friday" became an unlikely, off-key global hit. Because of a legal dispute with Ark Music Factory, the video has had two YouTube incarnations, both of which were tabulated in the year-end count.

They're stealing this small town's history. The bronze plaques that marked the wheres and noted the whos and whispered the back story of Selma, "raisin capital of the world," are disappearing. Gone are the testaments that an elementary school was a public works project built during the Great Depression and that the women's club has stood since 1911. There are no longer etched letters gracing the town mural in loving memory of Mr. Snodgrow, or a bronzed list of those who donated money to build the church hall at St. Joseph's.

At first, Marc Handler ignored the pickup trucks loaded with scrap metal, machine components and other junk parked on the street outside his North Hollywood home. He hoped they would simply go away. But the number of trucks only increased, from three to as many as 15. Sometimes the clanging and banging would stir Handler from his sleep in the wee hours. "I feel that I am now living in a blighted area full of smashed-up vehicles and piles of scrap metal and junk — an industrial area of workmen and industrial materials, not a neighborhood," said Handler, who lives in a house he bought from his grandparents 20 years ago. "This is in my face every day."

For the second time in four months, suspected scrap metal thieves have stolen a bronze statue in Covina, part of a collection of public art funded by a local developer. The theft occurred in front of a bank building late Friday or early Saturday. The thieves apparently used a truck to drag the 300-pound statue until it broke loose from its base, said Sgt. Ray Marquez of the Covina Police Department.

From boat level in the Los Angeles Harbor, the mountains of shredded metal at the Hugo Neu-Proler Co. rise high enough to obscure the sunrise for several minutes each morning. It is less the unsightly heaps of former cars, washing machines and iron pipes that concern neighbors and environmentalists, however, than what goes unseen--industrial toxins that have seeped into the soil and washed into the bay during the company's 33 years in the scrap metal business.

Aging metal detectors at Los Angeles County's Men's Central Jail frequently break down, posing safety concerns for deputies who routinely confiscate weapons that inmates make from scrap metal, sheriff's officials said. "We're stuck with old technology and stuff that breaks down regularly," said Sheriff's Capt. Daniel Cruz, who oversees the jail. Cruz said that of seven machines at the jail, only one is operational at the moment. After a Times inquiry into the faulty machines Wednesday, the Sheriff's Department committed to replacing three of the seven machines.