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Police charge Hilo man with copper theft

MEDIA RELEASE

Greg Makaala Hiroshi Branco

Greg Makaala Hiroshi Branco

A 24-year-old man has been charged with theft of copper in connection with two incidents last June.

The 52-year-old victim reported that 128 pounds of copper pipe had been removed from his warehouse in the Panaʻewa area of Hilo on June 23 and June 25. Investigation revealed that Greg Makaala Hiroshi Branco of Hilo had recycled the copper, valued at $194, without the owner’s permission.

Branco was arrested Saturday (January 30) and taken to the Hilo police cellblock while detectives from the Area I Criminal Investigations Section continued the investigation.

At 9:50 a.m. Monday, (February 1), Branco was charged with theft of copper and his bail was set at $2,000. He was also charged Saturday on an unrelated bench warrant for failure to appear. Bail for that offense was set at $150.

He remained at the cellblock until his initial court appearance scheduled for Monday afternoon.

One Response to “Police charge Hilo man with copper theft”

  1. Larry says:

    Can’t the scrap metal companies do a better job of turning these guys in? Last year or maybe 2014, out on Guam, some guy stripped a historic site of it’s bronze plagues and sold them to a recycle operator. It wasn’t until there was a story in the PDN that an employee called to report they had purchased them. They recovered some of them but some had been shipped off island. C’mon man, who is going to recycle copper pipe (probably still in a roll) or bronze plaques if they own them?

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