St. Louis has a thriving underground crime scene composed of no ordinary thieves—people come to the city to steal the bricks that make up many of the city’s buildings.

Over the past two years, fires have demolished almost 400 vacant brick houses throughout the north side of St. Louis. Politicians and officials in St. Louis assert that this is no coincidence, pointing fingers at these brick thieves. These unusual thieves steal St. Louis bricks, which are high in value and intricate beauty, and sell them in an underground market for stolen bricks in order to obtain quick and easy cash.

In 1849, St. Louis had a massive fire. Afterward, the government decreed that all new buildings be built of brick.

For more than a century, St. Louis has been famous for its distinctive clay bricks. Known as the “Used Brick Capital of the World,” St. Louis has been struggling with destroyed buildings and stolen bricks for 10 to 15 years.

The thieves allegedly sets fire to vacant brick buildings in St. Louis. When the firemen put out the fires, the pressure from the hoses ends up wiping the mortar off the bricks. The thieves then take a sledgehammer to the walls of clean bricks, or remove the foundation from the houses, and let the roofs and walls collapse. Then, brick thieves take the valuable bricks to the south or the west coast in the U.S., where the drier climates allow them to be reused.

“St. Louis brick is prized architecturally,” said James Mosbacher, a graduate of Wash. U. in 2010 who majored in American Culture Studies and architecture.

The north side of St. Louis has suffered most at the hands of thieves, with entire blocks of vacant properties in St. Louis Place and JeffVanderLou disappearing overnight. In August 2009, a vacant building in JeffVanderLou that was occupied just two years earlier was suddenly overwhelmed by fire and was later found with missing bricks. In 2007, the entire abandoned block of Wright Street in St. Louis Place, last occupied five years earlier, was pillaged for bricks.

Several weeks ago, in August, the North Galilee Missionary Baptist Church was burned down for brick rustling, when it had only been vacant for three years after serving its function for a full century.

Brick thieves are usually people who live in the St. Louis area. Sometimes they do not own vehicles, so they use carts. A lot of the people engaged in brick thefts have outstanding warrants for drug offenses, as a good portion of brick thieves have been found to be drug addicts trying to pay for a fix. Others are just St. Louis residents in need of cash.

Citizens of St. Louis have been demanding stricter punishments for brick thieves in order to deter the crimes, but little progress has been made. In 2008, St. Louis put together a task force for the prevention brick thefts, but this task force proved unsuccessful and no longer exists.

Three arrests were made that year, but the charges were eventually dropped, and no one was prosecuted.

“It is a difficult task for the police force to catch brick thieves,” said Michael Allen, the director of the Preservation Research Office in St. Louis. “It would take a lot of time and money to fight.”

“What really should be done is that police should monitor the brick yard. If a form of identification and a demolition permit was required, it would be a lot easier for police to prevent these thefts from occurring,” Allen said.

Meanwhile, the brick thefts are creating a significant impact on the city of St. Louis. The city has been attempting to undergo redevelopment, but rehabilitation activity is down. Property values in the north side are also being driven down by the thefts, creating problems for St. Louis residents. Brick theft also produces an artificially low price for demolition, which is hurting contractors.

“It is undermining an entire line of work that is legitimate and obeys the law,” Allen said. “Demolition contractors are supposed to earn money by demolishing buildings and later selling the materials—brick thieves are taking both of those away. Now people doing honest labor are losing money.”

Correction: It the originally posted version of this article, it was reported that James Mosbacher is senior at Wash. U. when he actually graduated last May in the class of 2010. Student Life also reported that this article was written by Chloe Rosenberg and not the actual writer Allyson Scher. Student Life regrets these errors.