In some desperate places, people would cut down aluminum power lines and sell them to scrapyards for some quick buck. But copper power lines? Those would be in a similar danger in many more places.
Not only in desperate places. I heard last year (or the year before) someone stole few km of train wire in Germany. Although to this day some people think it was a Russian sabotage rather than genuine theft.
Previously (for example in Poland) I used to hear about things like this all the time until maybe a decade ago.
