Stolen Property

Fueled by methamphetamine and working like termites, they have blacked out entire neighborhoods, stripped building sites and reduced telephone poles to splintered wood. Whether at a school, business or hospital, the thieves' quarry is always the same: copper. Over the last few months, copper-wire thefts have skyrocketed statewide and across the nation.

About half of the 2,000 wedding gowns stolen in Scottsdale, Ariz., five months ago before they could reach a California fundraiser have been seized at the border by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. The gowns were discovered last week in a tractor trailer re-entering the U.S. at Nogales after attempting to go into Mexico, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said Tuesday.

The man arrested in Paris on suspicion of trying to peddle two valuable stolen violins was indicted Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles for allegedly transporting goods unlawfully to a foreign country. The grand jury charged Anthony Eugene Notarstefano with transporting the violins, valued at $300,000, to Amsterdam, then to Paris, where he was arrested while attempting to sell them, authorities said. The instruments were stolen Dec.

Egypt plans to seek the temporary return of some of its most precious artifacts from museums abroad, including the Rosetta Stone and a bust of Nefertiti. The country's chief archeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the Foreign Ministry would send letters this week requesting that the ancient artifacts be loaned to Egypt. Hawass has previously demanded the permanent return of many of the artifacts, claiming some of them were taken illegally.

An Austrian museum, the Albertina, is trying to determine whether a prized collection of 3,600 posters, including works by Gustav Klimt, was acquired in a coerced Holocaust-era sale, according to the Art Newspaper. The Albertina, an acclaimed graphics collection in Vienna, had believed the works, which could be worth $10 million, were bought legitimately from the Catholic widow of Julius Paul, a Jewish businessman.

A contract employee at a nuclear material cleanup site pleaded not guilty in Knoxville to charges that he stole classified equipment used in enriching uranium and sold it to an undercover FBI agent posing as an official for the French government. Roy Lynn Oakley, 65, of Roane County, was detained for questioning in January before surrendering to authorities on Thursday. None of the data made it out of the country or was transmitted to criminal or terrorist groups, the Justice Department said.

For decades, college kids have used stolen milk crates as the basic building blocks of coffee tables and dorm room shelves. Now, a new breed of crate rustler is cashing in by swiping thousands of the containers from loading docks and selling them to recyclers. The containers are chopped into bits and shipped to booming factories in China to be made into a variety of products, including pipes and flower pots.

The most dramatic outcome of Wednesday's eagerly anticipated news of a deal between Italy and the Getty Museum over looted antiquities concerned the fate of Aphrodite. The monumental 5th century BC goddess, believed by many to be from the ancient Greek city of Morgantina on the island of Sicily, is easily among the greatest ancient sculptures in an American museum collection. Now it is among 40 works the Getty has agreed to return to Italy.

Hollywood security guard Lillian Price marched determinedly along the Walk of Fame, anxious to investigate this missing person case personally. She walked past William Bendix's brass star, past William Powell's, past George Sanders'. She stopped short in front of Ann Sothern's polished terrazzo sidewalk square and stared through the barricade on the Vine Street sidewalk. "They're gone!" Price exclaimed. "The stars are gone -- they're missing in action!"

French investigators have recovered two Picasso paintings and a drawing that were stolen from the home of the artist's granddaughter in February, a police official said. Paris police took three people into custody. Two suspects were carrying the rolled-up canvases when police closed in Tuesday as they were expected to try to sell the masterpieces, the official said. The two paintings -- one of Pablo Picasso's daughter Maya, the other of his second wife Jacqueline -- are worth nearly $66 million.