Five charged in Buncombe County AT&T wire theft ring investigation
Five people were charged after stolen AT&T wire cut off service across Buncombe County, with burn sites found in Swannanoa and Leicester.
Service outages rippled across Buncombe County after stolen AT&T wire was cut, burned and stripped, leaving residents, businesses and emergency communications exposed to a crime spree investigators say stretched for months. Five people have now been charged in the case, which began in December 2025 and turned up multiple sites in Swannanoa and the Leicester community where stolen wire was processed for scrap.
Detectives said they recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cut wire as they worked with AT&T personnel and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office to trace the thefts. The damage was not limited to missing metal. WLOS and 828 News NOW reported that the wire thefts caused widespread outages across Buncombe County, a problem that can knock out phone service, internet access and the connections businesses need to operate day to day.
Among those charged, Travis Warren Glenn faces multiple counts including felony larceny, injury to utility wires or fixtures and charges tied to obtaining nonferrous metals. He posted bonds totaling $45,000 after being charged in separate instances. Joseph Clay Bryant was charged with obtaining property by false pretenses and felony larceny, and Kevin Michael Fox was charged with injuring property to obtain nonferrous metals, misdemeanor larceny and possession of stolen property. Both Bryant and Fox received $5,000 bonds.
The case carries particular weight in a county still working through the strain of Helene and other infrastructure disruptions. Utility theft is not a victimless property crime in a place like Buncombe County. When telecom lines are stolen, the fallout reaches far beyond the scrap pile. Phone systems fail, internet service drops, business operations stall and law enforcement must divert time and manpower to an investigation that stretches across multiple communities.
The new arrests also fit a pattern that has already played out in western North Carolina. In 2024, Vincent DePaul faced eight additional charges in Buncombe County after already being charged with 47 counts in Henderson County in a separate AT&T cable-theft case. That earlier investigation, which involved AT&T asset protection and local law enforcement, was tied to 10 cases dating back to May 2023. Data Center Dynamics reported that a 2022 Buncombe County cell-site transmission-line copper theft ring led to an estimated $331,000 in damage.
Taken together, the cases show how a scrap-metal crime can grow into a countywide telecommunications problem. The recurring thefts have exposed the vulnerability of remote cable routes and cell-site infrastructure, and they have made clear that the response has to be just as coordinated as the thefts themselves.
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