The soaring price of raw materials is having repercussions that may surprise some of those working in procurement.

And whilst the high cost of oil is nothing new – the rising cost of crude drove up input prices by 3.2 percent in September, more than double the expected figure – global metal prices have also surged since the turn of the year, attributed, in main, to China’s insatiable appetite for metals such as copper.

In the US, the price of copper has leapt by 60 percent since February and is currently trading at around $4 - a four-fold leap in just five years. Now, the increase is leading to a worldwide crime waves as unscrupulous thieves look to cash in.

Last week in Detroit, six people were left dead after being electrocuted whilst trying to steal copper wires for a couple of hundred dollars. Meanwhile, police forces in the UK have also said that the country is experiencing a massive increase in incidences of metal theft, with nothing too big (or too small) for a new generation of scrap metal “dealers”.

In one case an entire bus shelter was seized, an audacious heist that has left police baffled. Some estimates claim that a select band of thieves specialising in the metal’s market are now making as much as £200,000 a week, all of which would seem to suggest that this new trading place is unlikely to close down any time soon.