AEP Offers Reward in West Virginia Copper Theft Outage

Moundsville, W.Va., police are looking for copper thieves who caused a power outage affecting about 3,000 American Electric Power customers.

AEP is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

Media outlets report that the thieves broke into a substation on Tuesday morning and tripped a circuit breaker while stealing copper wire.

A control house also was broken into and additional equipment was damaged.

Power was restored in about two hours.

AEP spokeswoman Carmen Pratti-Miller says the company hasn’t determined the extent of the damage.