MOSCOW, August 12 (RIA Novosti) – A pair of scrap metal dealers in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk are accused of stealing a locomotive and selling it as scrap for a price nearly 20 times less than what they pledged to pay a railway operator for it, police said Sunday.
The pair now faces a decade in prison for taking the locomotive without paying for it, local police said in a statement, adding that the duo had sold the 5.5 million ruble ($170,000) piece of rolling stock for a relatively paltry 300,000 rubles ($9,000).
A similar train theft in the same region reportedly happened in 2005, and as recently as June a tractor driver in northern Russia is believed to have stolen a village bridge to sell as scrap metal.
In May, scrap metal collectors reportedly stole a bicycle used by a trained bear in a traveling circus passing through Tatarstan. Last week, a man stole a road in northwest Russia, driving off with 82 slabs of reinforced concrete slabs outside the city of Syktyvkar.
