We all know that game cameras do a great job of snapping shots of our next trophy buck. With their undetectable flashes and ever-smaller housings, the silent sentinels of our outdoor pursuits have revolutionized scouting and made gathering intel for our next hunt only a few clicks away.

Now it seems game cameras are being used for a lot more than just counting points.

According to a recent story in the New York Times, local law enforcement officers have deployed a series of five Bushnell Trophy Cams deep in the city’s subway system to nab would-be copper thieves. The cable snatchers sneak into the dark recesses of subway tunnels and cut lengths of copper that can go to scrap metal merchants for as much as $24 per pound, the paper says.

Though the thieves tend to take lines that don’t have electricity running through them, in some cases the covert cutters go too far, stopping trains in their tracks and endangering riders, the paper said.

The cops position the Bushnell cameras on poles and elevated tracks of the New York subways which snap the night vision shots of suspected thieves as they enter and leave the tunnels.

“Within three hours of the first camera being installed at one location, copper cable thieves were caught on camera and eventually arrested,” a transit authority spokesman told The Times.

Since the cameras were deployed in September, law enforcement officers have caught nine trespassers in the subway tunnels and arrested two, the paper said.