Germany has a TV show about meter tampering and power theft discovered by the PoCos... the most funny episode I remember was about a family from Turkey... the guys from the PoCo found a case of electricity theft and the tenant ratted about some other people stealing power too. Getting there the guys were greeted by a woman with several children in the hallway (you know, classic cliché here). They opened the meter closet, only to find a hole drilled into the meter and a needle inserted to keep the disc from spinning... now here comes the funny part. The woman said: "Meter broken! Had fix it!" with a strong accent. To thee PoCo guy's blank faces she added: "Was broken! Always turn!" with a motion of turning her hand to imitate the spinning disc...
Here the way most common way to steal power is simply tapping into the wiring ahead of the meter. In most old multifamily buildings that wiring is easily accessible and can be isolated by means of main fuses that everybody can operate.
The oldest meters I've seen in use date from the mid 1960ies and are swapped for checking every 15 years. If they test ok they're reinstalled for another 15 years.
Digital meters didn't really catch on here. I've seen only one in all my time and that was a huge 60A three-phase meter (that's the largest direct meter available here, everything above 400V 3ph 60A is on a CT).
