There is nuance if you're willing to see it. That you can't get to a point where it "never pays" doesn't mean people don't become more willing to steal as situations become more desperate and vice versa. You see a lot more copper getting ripped off during a recession.
Desperate people steal food, not cooper. Turning cooper into whatever they're supposedly desperate for requires patience and business-like level of effort organization, which goes beyond what desperation can explain. People chose to steal cooper because it's likely that they will get away with it, as there isn't much security in the areas of "work" to be taken into account, and probably also (cooper being a relatively cheap commodity) because getting get caught doesn't carry that much of a penalty risk.
Selling stolen copper isn’t hard, there already is a network of scrap metal dealers that exist to purchase legitimately collected metal scrap for eventual reuse. All one needs to do is find one that’s willing to turn a blind eye to suspicious volumes, which is basically just the process of finding a fence in any other criminal enterprise. It’s not exactly rocket science.
Doing it effectively requires organization, yes. Stealing manhole covers, taking them to the forest and breaking them with a club, then selling them at the scrap yard as damaged -- only requires stupidity. Guy probably spent more on gas alone. And this actually happened if you were wondering.
People will literally rip out metal wires from reinforced brick towers making them collapse while they are still inside. You can't make this shit up.
