Police in Florida announced Friday that they had arrested a suspect in the disappearance of 166 manhole covers.

The Polk County Sheriff’s detectives launched an investigation on Wednesday after the local utility company, Toho Water Authority, reported that dozens of the 300-pound steel lids had gone missing over a period of about two weeks, a release from the Sheriff said.

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A "scrap alert" to all secondhand metal dealers sparked a tip leading to Christopher Fink, 40, who was arrested on Thursday after he allegedly offloaded the covers — worth more than $22,000 in total — with Gregco Recycling.

Local authorities were not amused.

"The lack of manhole covers significantly increased the risk of harm to drivers and pedestrians in the area," said a release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. "Toho placed temporary plywood covers over the spaces and marked each area as a hazard."

Fink was charged with 21 counts of grand theft, four counts of dealing in stolen property, four counts of false verification to secondhand metal dealer and 166 counts culpable negligence exposure to harm.

The theft of manhole covers, typically made of cast iron, is a global problem, and generally worsens when the price of scrap metal is high.

In some of other recent manhole cover disappearances, Bessemer City, N.C. in December was investigating the disappearance of 30 covers in a week according to local TV station News 14 while in Cleveland earlier this month, a driver was stopped around 1 a.m. with at least 10 stolen manhole covers and stolen storm grates in the back of his truck.

Last year, the town of Birmingham in the United Kingdom called a crisis meeting over a spate of metal thefts after 900 manhole covers disappeared in 6 months, people posing as city workers brazenly walked off with metal street signs and thieves stripped the plumbing from empty houses.

In the Indian city of Calcutta, the problem of manhole covers disappearing became so severe at one point that the government started making the covers from concrete, according to a report in the Telegraph India. But thieves took them anyway, and cashed in on the rebar embedded inside.

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Officers from Polk County, a largely rural area sandwiched between Tampa and Orlando, arrested 78 people on prostitution and related charges between Thursday and Sunday in an ambitious undercover vice crackdown on online solicitation.

"It’s sending a message," said Polk County public information officer Donna Wood. "We don’t want it in our county. We do not want prostitution or anything with illicit sexual activity in our county… We don’t want your drugs, your diseases, and all the other crimes that accompany it."

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The operation was run by third-term Sheriff Grady Judd, who spearheaded an effort decades ago, when he was in the vice squad, to shut down hundreds of Polk county strip clubs, adult book shops, massage parlors, and video stores and other operations that tend to facilitate prostitution.

According to a profile published by the Tampa Bay Times, moral outrage once prompted Grady to even run a sting on a suspected child porn publisher in Colorado, and then send two officers more than 1,800 miles to arrest him.

This time, the third-term sheriff was targeting the newest gathering place for prostitutes and potential clients — Internet sites such as backpage.com and Craigslist. The operation targeted both the prostitutes who posted Internet ads offering their services in Polk, as well as would-be customers who responded to fake ads — with the presumably unintended effect of luring some of the suspects into Polk county from outside.

The sheriff's office announced the crackdown with much fanfare on Monday, offering up details of who-agreed-to-what-sex-act-for-what-price, as well as the jobs, marital status and other details about the perpetrators. He posted their pictures on Facebook.

The sheriff’s office reported that 18 of the 78 people booked into Polk County jail admitted they were married, including two suspects who were married to each other. It noted that more than 30 of the suspects had criminal histories — including nine registered felons. Fourteen were on public assistance and 22 said they were unemployed.

They said 50 of the suspects were working — citing jobs that included "microbiologist," "city employee," "food server" and "porn star." One is a Law Enforcement Academy trainee who was preparing to graduate this week, police said.

"Some will argue that this is a misdemeanor, and a victimless crime. That is absolutely not true," said Wood, adding that one of the suspects left her three small children with a virtual stranger when she set out to turn a trick with a client who turned out to be an undercover officer.

Another suspect, who is married, allegedly arranged with the undercover officer to pay extra for unprotected sex, she said.

"It’s a question of quality of life. The sheriff is adamant about maintaining that quality of life for our residents," Wood said. "One of the ways we do that is by fighting prostitution."

All the suspects were booked into the Polk County jail, though many have since posted bond and been released.

According to Wood, this is typical when the county runs vice operations, which it does regularly.

"They frequently are arrested and bond out and hopefully they never come back to our county," she said.

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A father, mother and their four children died when a small plane crashed in a remote rural area of Florida Thursday afternoon, officials said.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office said the Pilatus PC-12/47 aircraft went down in the Tiger Creek Swamp near Lake Wales around 12:30 p.m. The area is southeast of Lakeland in central Florida.

The victims were listed as the aircraft's pilot, Ronald Bramlage, 45, Rebecca Bramlage, 43, and their four children. Officials have located the bodies of three of the children and were still searching for the fourth, the Sheriff's Office said in a statement.. 

The aircraft was owned by Roadside Ventures LLC of Junction City, Kan. Ronald Bramlage was the owner of Roadside Ventures, authorities said.

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The plane took off from the Treasure Cay airport in the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas and made a stop at the St. Lucie County International Airport in Fort Pierce, Fla., to clear customs. The plane then took off for Junction City at 12:05 p.m. with two adults and four children on board, authorities said. 

Officials said the plane began to break apart over southeast Polk County and crashed. 

The crash area is in a remote area and the Polk County Sheriff's Office used helicopters to fly in law enforcement and medical personnel. 

Parts of the aircraft were found as far as two miles away from the crash site. Officials say that the parts separated before the crash and that the plane was traveling at 26,000 feet when it began experiencing trouble.  

The victims were listed as the aircraft's pilot, Ronald Bramlage, 45, Rebecca Bramlage, 43, and their four children. Officials have located the bodies of three of the children and are still searching for the fourth. 

The cause of the crash has not been determined.

The plane had been owned by Casey Anthony's former attorney, Todd Macoluso, and is the same one that was used the night she was released from jail after her trial, the The Palm Beach Post reported. Macoluso may have sold the plane earlier this year, the Post said.

Ronald Bramlage was the grandson of Fred Bramlage, the namesake of the Bramlage Coliseum at Kansas State University, NBC station KSNW of Wichita, Kan., reported. Rebecca Bramlage was president of the Junction City Board of Education. Both were graduates of Kansas State.

University President Dr. Kirk Schulz and Athletics Director John Currie released a statement:

"We are shocked and saddened by the tragic news of the deaths of Ron and Becky Bramlage and their children today. The Bramlage family holds a special place in the history of Kansas State University and K-State Athletics, and Ron and Becky have been loyal supporters and great fans of K-State. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Bramlage family during this difficult time." 

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