Copper theft, at the bull’s-eye of agriculture crime since at least the 1990s, finally has a heavyweight foe on the farm—a watchman that never sleeps.
Amid the highest copper prices in history and 30-plus years of ag equipment destruction, Cop-R-Lock provides unprecedented theft prevention, contends Bobby Rader. “It’s as close to having a human being standing at your pump site, even in the most rural areas, as you can possibly get.”
Copper hit an all-time high of $5.96 per pound in 2025, triggering a blitz of theft across farms, substations, construction sites, telecommunications infrastructure, and numerous other industry hubs. Copper larceny sucks over $1 billion from the U.S. economy each year.
“From seed to water to machinery, we’ve got phenomenal innovation in every area of agriculture, except in the ag crime space,” says Rader, Chief of Police for Porterville, Calif. “Cop-R-Lock is the answer and there’s never been anything like it.”
Insult to Injury
A red metal plague is raging. Copper wire is easy to steal, and easy to sell at a scrapyard’s backdoor. Ground zero of copper theft arguably is central California’s Tulare County, often ranked as the No. 1 ag-producing county in the U.S.
Each year, Tulare and its surrounding Central Valley counties grow tens of billions of dollars in thirsty crops demanding water. The region is covered by pumps and irrigation systems housing a massive volume of copper wiring. Throw a proverbial rock, hit a pump. Drive a quarter mile in any direction, pass two or three pumps.
“This is not the California you see on television,” explains Rader, who led Tulare County’s Agricultural Crimes Unit for almost 16 years. “This is cowboy and ag country. This is rural America. It’s a place where drug addicts, particularly meth or heroin users, prey on pumps and steal copper. There’s an incredibly high amount of agriculture production here, and therefore, it’s a magnet for copper thieves.”
Tulare County is a flat valley maze of citrus and tree nut groves, i.e., plenty of pumps and farm sites just feet off the road with no line of sight for producers, landowners, or passersby.
“Up to now, copper theft has been easy,” Rader describes. “A criminal drives around at night, pulls 10’ off the road, and rips all the copper from a well, and nobody sees them and nobody hears them and nobody interrupts them. There is no immediate consequence, and the theft might not be discovered for days.”
Copper theft occurs year-round, but peaks from November to March, when fields and groves are often unmonitored and pumps are shut down. “It can easily happen during summertime and irrigation season, but generally, it happens over winter, when guys aren’t checking their pumps. If you’re a copper thief, you can go out at night and hit five or six pumps in one area, and nobody’s going to know about it for weeks. Law enforcement can’t get involved until it’s far too late.”
The copper theft burden shouldered by farmers is extraordinarily heavy. A thief hitting a small pump system might yield a mere $150 return in recyclable value, yet easily inflict $5,000-$7,000 in damage to the farmer-owner. However, if the given site houses multiple pumps and panels, the damage skyrockets to $100,000-plus. Insult to injury, the thieves often return and steal from the same sites after repairs.
“The worst I’ve ever seen at one site that I’ve personally investigated was about $150,000,” Rader notes. “That was the cost for the electrical contractor to come to the site, repair everything, and put new wire back.”
Multiplied across county and country, copper theft costs are staggering.
No more, Rader insists. The blue-collar lawman, raised in farm fields and shaped by a career at the frontline of ag crime, has developed a ferocious solution.
“Cut off the ability to hide in the dark unaffected by consequence. The opportunity belongs to the farmer and law enforcement now. Cop-R-Lock.”
Consequences Before Damage
What is Cop-R-Lock? Rader’s self-engineered tech innovation to protect farms from copper theft in real-time via a trigger wire attached to a sensor. The system protects a well system before theft and damage begin.
“A sensor is installed at the pump site. A trigger wire is integrated into the conduit systems at pump and panel, on the inside and outside,” Rader says. “That creates consequences immediately triggering Cop-R-Lock when anyone starts to cut the conduit or open the panels.”
The consequences are immediate and two-fold. One, extremely bright lights and a screaming siren go off. “It’s an absolutely overwhelming volume and creates a physiological response of stress in a thief.”
Two, mass notifications are triggered. “It’s all controlled by an app. Whoever you put in the contact list is going to get the alert of the precise location where the attempted theft occurred. It can be anybody including family, employees, and local law enforcement. Everybody knows right away the system is being tampered with.”
“Literally, it shrinks the thief’s window down to minutes instead of hours, and it also ensures weeks don’t go by without someone knowing about the theft attempt.”
The tech, with a price tag under $4,000 per unit, extends beyond pumps and irrigation, and protects fencing, vehicles, batteries, and more.
“Run a trigger wire through chain link fence, or run it through multiple pieces of equipment, or anything else on a farm. Any cutting of that wire means instant notification to the owner. Noise, lights, notifications, and consequences—before damage.”
Genesis
After almost two decades trailing outlaws, Rader has seen every shade of ag crime. When he helmed the Agricultural Crimes Unit, 10 p.m. calls from frustrated farmers were a steady part of the job. “I’d hustle out and try to help, so furious over what some meth-head had done to another hard-working farmer. I grew up in these fields. I’m an agriculture guy and I care. These criminals steal several hundred dollars in copper, but leave behind tens of thousands in damage for a farmer. Or they leave behind a farmer who suddenly can’t irrigate and loses even more money. The whole thing drove me crazy.”
In early 2024, Rader was drowning a pot of leaded coffee at 3 a.m., wrestling his frustrations while considering how to stop a serial copper bandit who wrecked a chain of sites across Tulare County.
“I kept asking myself for a simpler solution. What are we missing? I’d searched the internet for years for something that instantaneously cut off opportunity, but there was nothing out there except another form of the latest, greatest game camera alarm.”
Prior to law enforcement, Rader was a contractor. Translated: His back pocket contains a mix of mechanical and electrical know-how. “I was standing by my kitchen counter, holding a coffee cup, and it hit me like a bolt.”
Rader grabbed a napkin and pen, and drew a blueprint. Two hours later, he transferred the scrawl to a notepad: Cop-R-Lock was born.
Assisted by a local engineer, Rader built five prototypes on a shoestring budget and filed for a patent. “I needed help and that’s where FarmBlox stepped up. They understood what farmers are going through and recognized how bad copper theft it. They jumped on it and turned it into what we have today, which is a protection tool for any farmer across the country or world.”
“We mail Cop-R-Lock to farmers and they either install it or get an electrician to do it,” Rader adds. “It’s an amazingly simple system to install and very easy to operate. One thing for certain, copper theft is not going away. The thieves are coming, but we’re ready with a tool that cuts off opportunity right from the get-go.”
At the Heart
Methods for copper theft prevention vary by farm, ranging from steel cages, wire frames, fences, and concrete poured around conduits. Rader’s innovation is common-sense technology, he insists. “It’s simple and strikes at the heart of the problem. We’re taking away a thief’s opportunity.”
For more from Chris Bennett (@ChrisBennettMS or cbennett@farmjournal.com or 662-592-1106), see:
Outraged Farmers Blame Ag Monopolies as Catastrophic Collapse Looms
Family Farm Wins Historic Case After Feds Violate Constitution and Ruin Business
County Shuts Down 15-Yr-Old’s Bait Stand on Family Farm, Threatens Daily Fines
Corn and Cocaine: Roger Reaves and the Most Incredible Farm Story Never Told
How the Deep State Tried, and Failed, to Crush an American Farmer
Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
Ghost Cattle: $650M Ponzi Rocks Livestock Industry, Money Still Missing
