Edmonton police are looking for Chad Brochu.
The 43-year-old is wanted on warrants tied to four break-ins where copper wire was stripped out of cell tower sites and homes under construction. Police say those four break-ins alone caused more than $80,000 in damage and stolen property.
Police made the appeal Thursday, Nov. 5, in a year when copper theft has been hitting Edmonton hard. EPS says it has taken about 424 reports of copper wire theft so far in 2026 and made 40 arrests. That’s already a third more than in all of 2024, with nearly two months still to go.
None of the allegations against Brochu has been proven in court.
What police say happened
The four break-ins happened between January 2025 and February 2026, police say.
Two were at telecommunications tower sites, where copper wire was stolen and what police call “critical infrastructure” was damaged. The other two were at homes under construction, where copper wiring was stripped from the property.
Investigators put the combined damage and stolen property at more than $80,000.
Brochu is wanted on four counts of break and enter with intent to commit an offence, and one count of breach of probation.
Police haven’t said where the four break-ins were, how much copper was taken, or how the $80,000 breaks down.
What Chad Brochu looks like
Police describe him as:
Age: 43
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 170 pounds, medium build
Hair and eyes: brown
Other: known to wear glasses
Police have released his photo.
Don’t approach him. If you know where he is, call Edmonton police at 780-423-4567, or #377 from a mobile phone.
424 thefts and counting
The 424 reports cover copper theft across the whole city, not just the four cases tied to Brochu.
But they show how fast the problem is growing. Edmonton police logged about 318 copper wire thefts in all of 2024. By spring 2025, they were at 168 for that year. This year, they passed the 2024 total months ago.
Thieves have gone after almost anything with copper in it. In 2025, police warned about break-ins at the electrical switching cubicles that feed southwest Edmonton neighbourhoods, which left live wires exposed. They also reported thefts of EV charging cables, with about $20,000 in damage to city charging stations by spring.
Parts of the city are going dark
The most visible damage is to streetlights.
Thieves pry open the access panels on light poles and pull the copper out. The light dies, the parts inside get wrecked, and a simple bulb swap turns into a rebuild.
On Oct. 29, city councillor Erin Rutherford said a surge in wire thefts had left streets, parks, pathways and parking lots without working lights. Crews are fixing the most dangerous gaps first, such as major roads and busy walking routes. The city is also putting locks on poles that keep getting hit and swapping some copper wire for aluminum, which is worth far less to thieves.
With the days getting shorter, that matters. More people are walking and driving home in the dark.
Internet and phone lines are getting cut too
Thieves are also going after telecom cables. When they pull copper, they often cut the fibre-optic lines running next to it. Fibre has no scrap value, but cutting it can knock out service for a whole neighbourhood.
In late October, cut lines took down internet for thousands of customers in at least four Edmonton neighbourhoods. In Delton, wires had been cut from a streetlight.
Police haven’t said whether the two tower break-ins in the Brochu case caused any outages.
The telecom companies say it’s getting worse everywhere. Telus has said thefts on its network more than doubled in 2026 compared with the same period last year. Bell has reported an increase of about 78 per cent.
Why it costs more than the copper is worth
Thieves get scrap prices for the wire. Everyone else pays for the damage.
At a cell tower, stripping copper can wreck equipment and cut service. At a house under construction, the wiring has to go back in before any other work can continue. At a streetlight, crews replace the wiring, the parts inside and the panel, then restore power.
A 2026 Senate committee report on copper theft collected numbers from companies operating in Alberta. One reported 191 thefts in 12 months and more than $3.5 million in damage. Another reported about 675 thefts in 18 months and nearly $5 million in damage.
Those are province-wide numbers from two companies, not Edmonton totals. But they show how fast it adds up.
Calgary has the same problem
Two days before the Edmonton appeal, Calgary police released images of a man caught on camera cutting copper wire out of the light standards and vehicle plug-ins at Forest Lawn High School. He rode off on a bicycle. No charges have been announced.
The two cases aren’t connected.
What Alberta is doing about it
Alberta regulates scrap metal sales to make stolen copper harder to sell. Dealers have to take ID for regulated transactions and report them to a database police can search, and cash payments for those sales are banned.
The idea is that stolen wire should be traceable. The numbers in Edmonton and Calgary show it hasn’t stopped the thefts.
How to help
If you know where Chad Brochu is: call 780-423-4567, or #377 from a mobile phone. Don’t approach him.
If you see someone tampering with a streetlight, electrical box or utility site: don’t confront them. Call police.
If you spot an open electrical cabinet or exposed wires: stay back. They may be live. Report it.
If a streetlight is out: report it to the City of Edmonton through 311.
Sources
Edmonton Police Service: Police seek suspect in copper wire theft investigation (Nov. 5, 2026)
Edmonton Police Service: EV charger copper theft (May 21, 2025)
Edmonton Police Service: Utility tampering warning (Feb. 14, 2025)
Councillor Erin Rutherford: Explaining Edmonton’s streetlight outages (Oct. 29, 2026)
Calgary Police Service: Need to identify suspect in copper wire theft (Nov. 3, 2026)
Senate of Canada: Stolen Signal, the costly consequences of copper theft in Canada (2026)
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