In many countries in Africa, copper is extraordinarily valuable as the raw material input for trinkets and tourist souvenirs. Where do you get a ready supply of copper, if you are desperately poor? Easy ? just steal it from the telecommunications lines that criss-cross the land. A big problem for land-line based telephone operators has become a boon for mobile phone companies, even at a price that is 10 times the price of land-line based service. Now that citizens have mobile phones, a secondary market in phone-based services is beginning to emerge. Who would have thought that a great opportunity can come from such desperation?