BURAIDAH, 3 September 2007 — In what has become a phenomenon across the Kingdom, police arrested an Asian gang of electrical cable thieves that targeted farms between Qasim and Hail.
Col. Fahd ibn Ali Al-Habdan, spokesman for Qasim police, said the arrests followed new cooperation between police departments in Qasim and Hail.
“The Asian workers were caught red-handed while trying to steal a 2,000-meter cable from one of the farms where one member of the gang was working as a farm hand,” Al-Habdan said, adding that the worker’s sponsor was absent at the time.
He added that police arrested the workers after secretly watching the gang on separate occasions stealing cables from various farms in the region. The vast area between Hail and Qasim is home to the Kingdom’s largest farms and is a place where the Qasim Agricultural Company and Hail Agricultural Company are located.
Al-Habdan added that thieves sell the cables, which are highly expensive, at locations far away where no one is able to trace them.
Meanwhile, a Saudi man was arrested after shooting another man in Buraidah. “The man was arrested an hour after the shooting,” Al-Habdan said. He also called on people not to carry weapons.
The police spokesman also said that 11 people were killed last week in various traffic accidents in Qasim.
