Odd. Why not just fill out the paperwork to get permission to extract copper? There are mines all over the US that have outdated claims and could likely be accessed if one was willing to take the substantial risks of reactivating 100+ year old mines. Some are BLM land, some on private land for sale. Copper, silver, gold and much more. There are youtube channels that follow people exploring these old mines for their historic value. Left behind bottles, caps, cans, dynamite boxes, denim jeans, boots, ore carts, rails, food tins, snuff and chew tins. Some of those items are worth more than the minerals when factoring in the cost to smelt and purify them.
Just breaking in and taking it is probably way less labor-intensive than applying for it. They could probably do that 100 times before being caught. Finding out some random people in the middle of the night in bumfuck abandoned nowhere is probably harder to catch than a DUI and even that is done like 100 times on average before being caught.
At the end of the day they got away with a misdemeanor and a few hundred in fines. It's basically no sweat and they'll be back at it somewhere else for another 100 goes without getting caught.
You're right, the claims would eat into their costs if doing this once. But with a claim [1] they could mine 24/7/365 and even bring cheap labor along assuming they know what they are doing. Another advantage of working a claim is that one does not have to rush or cut corners further increasing risk. Some of those have partially covered multi-level stopes. One wrong step can send someone several hundred feet down jagged rocks.
