South of the border, where electrical wire and telephone lines are routinely stolen for their copper content, a new source of metallic wealth has been tapped: the U.S.-made border fence. This week, more than one group of Mexicans was arrested after disassembling part of the border fence with (presumably) the intention of selling it for scrap.

On Monday, according to Tijuana’s El Mexicano newspaper, two people were arrested. On Tuesday, four men were caught cutting up the border fence with a welding torch in the Zona Norte, near Calle Cinco de Mayo.

In the Tuesday incident, when Mexican police arrived, three pieces of the fence had been removed, each about three meters long and 15 centimeters wide. When they tried to escape, police ran them down and found other pieces of the fence that had been cut and carted off earlier in the day.

Due to this week’s attempted thefts, 27 panels of fence were removed. The more modern impregnable fence remains undamaged.