WESTFIELD – City police have responded to a larceny report and are investigating the theft of tons of copper from the former Old Colony manufacturing plant on Turnpike Industrial Road.
Det. Lt. David Ragazzini said Monday morning that the reports had been filed online a short time earlier by a representative of Cenveo Inc., the Connecticut based company which acquired the plant in September, 2013, when it bought the bankrupt National Envelope Company.
Cenveo laid off about 200 local workers when the plant closed in June.
Ragazzini said that the larceny report filed online was very brief and reports only that 2-3 tons of copper were stolen over a period of about a month.
Det. Scott Phelon was assigned to the case and reports that, although his investigation is in its infancy, it is obvious that a large amount of copper piping and wiring has been stolen from the former envelope plant that is being dismantled.
He said that heavy gauge copper wire had been in place, apparently to supply power to the machines in the plant, and some of it was removed by the thieves.
Other copper scrap had been removed by workers and had been stacked for shipment before it was stolen, Phelon said.
Phelon said that the theft occurred over a period of about a month.
In an unrelated theft of copper over the weekend, a much smaller amount was stolen from a fountain at Half Mile Park over the weekend.
Police report that a worker from a fountain maintenance company Monday reported she had found copper fittings missing when she arrived to clean the fountain at Half Mile Falls Park.
The woman said that the fountain was damaged and copper valued at about $100 was stolen.
Capt. Michael McCabe said that officers are pursuing a line of investigation in that case.
