Gov’t intends to toughen penalties for railway cable theft

The theft of materials from transport networks, especially the railway, will once again be deemed a criminal offense, the justice minister has said.

“The lowering of the penalty for the theft of materials that obviously have a special role and concern the safety of transport, in this case rail transport, from a felony to a misdemeanor is a question that must be answered based on what has evolved with criminal law of 2019,” Konstantinos Tsiaros said. “The government intends to toughen the sentence” for the theft of such materials, which “will be treated with the maximum penalty,” he noted.

Cable theft has long bedeviled the country’s railway network, leading to delays and cancellations of services. The activities of scrap rackets that target large-scale infrastructure, including the rail network, in search of precious metals like copper has been thrust back into the limelight following the deadly Tempe train collision.