Heard a story the other day about a guy somewhere in Sweden who wanted to lower his electrical bill. So he build a device consisting of the two relays. Connected this device to the service cable (before the meter, at some hard to find place) and installed a switch inside the house from which manoeuvred the relays. He could now choose if he wanted the electricity to run through the meter or beside it. A pretty sophisticated way to steal electricity.

There are much easier ways, as well.
The most sophisticated I ever heard was a guy who disassembled the meter and installed a photocell in series with one of the internal transformers. He only paid for the electric that was used during the time the photocell was conducting.

There are a couple of other ways to pretty much stop the meter & all connections are made on the load side. Unfortunately, there would likely be some negative effects for any electronic equipment found in the modern household.

Hope all these folks got caught. I've no sympathy for thieves of any type.

Tom

the Utilities here have lawyers with 6" teeth for offenders, trace amounts of bone & flesh are seen when they grin