Once the fall has set in, transformers get raided and cables get stolen much more often in Troitsk Electrical Networks.

In Plastovskiy District of Chelyabinsk Region, some offenders have numerously robbed the power transformers that deliver electricity to bore holes of some parts; as a result, the population of the neighboring villages has been left without any access to drinking water quite a number of times.

Similar offenses were reported in Troitskiy, Uvelskiy, and Oktyabrskiy Districts.

To prevent such crimes from happening, the power engineers of ChelyabEnergo, the local electricity and heat supplier, and some local law-enforcement officers introduced nightly patrols; the thefts do not occur any more, though the criminals have still not been caught.

Nine transformers that deliver electricity to bore holes have been stolen from Troitsk Electrical Networks altogether since the beginning of the year, and there have been 110 incidents of equipment being stolen over the ten moths of 2006. 27 people were caught in flagranti delicto and prosecuted, the spokesperson for ChelyabEnergo said to UrBC representative.