Here in Norway the usual way for a farmer to steal electricity was to get a couple of long poles with metal hooks on the end and just hook them over the line. At least that's what I was told by a colleague whose family owned a small farm. Of course that isn't suitable for voltages above the hundreds or possibly low thousands.

While growing up in Sweden in the eighties, my grandfather showed me the equipment he used to use doing just that, steal power, when he was a young farmer (in the twenties-thirties). Though the farm had power quite early it was easier to drive the 3-phase motor, used when threshing, directly from the poles. An obvious benefit was of course bypassing the meter.

Some years ago, while visiting my uncle who still lives on the same farm, I sought and found both the poles and the old threshing motor. The motor was enormous and mounted on a sled though rated for only 9-10 kW. It is not only semiconductors that keep getting smaller!

I heard attracting wasps with honey to lay nests in the spinning meter, also can't source that.

I think the main way is wires around the meter. How cool were these dudes stealing electricity from Edison, I liked Edison's firewall -

(1886) - "It was hardly worth while to maintain the continuous espionage necessary to detect and punish these pilferers, but the superintendent of the station, Mr. Chamberlain coupled in extra dynamos, and threw as great an increase of current over the system as the safety catches would permit, at various times for about one second while this current was passing; the incandescent lamps would give an unwanted glow, and every induction coil and motor surreptitiously attached to the system would receive an extra current designed to burn it. In this manner the system to occasionally cleared of all trespassers."

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/28360460