Missile silo site walks can be a hoot sometimes. They are always out in the middle of nowhere. I remember the project in Kazahkistan. The contractors bidding the project had to fly for a few hours in an old Russian military aircraft then pile on a bus for a couple more hours. It seemed like we had to stop in every little town along the way and do a shot of vodka with the local mayor.

These guys were looking to steal a little scrap and got a little more than they bargained for.
It is kind of a shame because this site is in the next round of missile silo dismantlements and they are going to have a site visit next month. Can you imagine a bunch of American contractors finding a silo full of money on a site walk? It would be like that old movie "It's a Mad, Mad World"

http://mosnews.com/news/2006/0.....ound.shtml

The way scrap is handled is a very slippery slope in a demolition business. I wish I had a dollar for every "side deal" that was ever made between Project Managers and laborers, Owners and PM's, operators and laborers, foremen and operators, scrap dealers and Project Managers, and every possible permutation/ combination in between. I have heard of instances where the Project manager conspired with subcontractors to under report the amount of scrap on the job. I have even seen partners cut side deals cutting their other partners out of a portion of the scrap. If the owner of the company visits the jobsites seldomly, I think the problem manifests itself even further. (unless they are in on the deal)
For the lower level employees involved, it always seems like a good deal at the time but in any cash based deal there is always a high level of mistrust. A lot of time the amount of estimated scrap is a "best guess" and if it falls short then the people up the chain of command automatically suspect theft. When the proverbial "shit hits the fan" there is always a lot of fingerpointing and appointing of the sacrificial lamb.
Just as a side note, I was on a project one time and dozens of trailerloads of scrap were flying off of the jobsite daily. I finally asked the Project Manager "You don't have a scale, and no one keeping track of the loads leaving everyday, how do you keep track of the scrap money?" He said "That's easy, at the end of the month the scrap dealer sends a statement to the office showing how many loads he trucked to his yard"

Having grown up in the scrap industry, I've seen quite a few cases of inhouse metals thefts. I personally hold the philosophy that if an employee steals he lose his job immediately with no severance. As for prosecution, it depends on the amoutn of scrap taken. I recently had to fire a guy for taking about 300 dollars worth of copper wire. I'm not going to prosecute because it's not worth it, I did prosecute another former employee about ten years ago after he was caught stealing a trailer load of aluminum clips. I both cases the emloyees recieved a punishment that was scaled to the theft.

I recently spoke to an employee of Nucor who told me that with scrap steel prices at the high rates they are now, they routinely recieve rail gondolas that are as much as 20000 lbs short from their posted weights. He said that while the cars are sitting at rail sidings, theives will pull up in trucks and toss prepared steel plate off the rail cars.

It's amazing to me the amount of work some people will go to not to have a job.