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An Unprecedented Wave Of Brazen Gasoline Thefts Is Rippling Across The US
Tradeforprofit.net ^ | 3-18-2022 | Michael Snyder

Posted on 03/18/2022 2:01:22 PM PDT by blam

If we are seeing this much criminal activity already, what will happen when the price of gasoline really spirals out of control? I had heard that gasoline thefts were happening around the nation, but I had no idea how bad things really were until I started looking into it.
From coast to coast, gas stations are being targeted, and this is often being done by organized groups. In other cases, criminals are going to private homes and are actually drilling directly into gas tanks in order to steal gasoline.
What we are witnessing is quite frightening, and it is yet another sign of how far our society has fallen.

Let me start by discussing an incident in a state that isn’t normally known for high crime. According to CNN, this week at least 15 criminals worked together to steal almost 400 gallons of gas from a station in North Carolina…

Nearly 400 gallons of gas were stolen from a North Carolina gas station this week, CNN reported.

More than 15 cars pulled up and filled up their tanks after business hours after someone used a special device allowing them to bypass the payment system.
Over the course of about 45 minutes, $1,600 worth of gas was stolen from the Bizzy Bee Grocery Store and Gas Station in High Point, said owner Hardik Patel.

This sort of organized activity reminds me of the shoplifting mobs that we have seen around the country in recent months.

When the owner of the station was asked about this crime, he told CNN that he has “never seen something like this”…

“I’ve been in business for 15 years and owned other gas stations. I have never seen something like this,” Patel told CNN. “It wasn’t free, they were stealing.”

Sadly, that wasn’t just an isolated incident.

In fact, this sort of thing is now happening all over the nation. If you doubt this, just go to Google News and type in “gasoline theft”.

Down in Texas, a group of very brazen thieves just stole over 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel from a station in Houston…

The manager of a family-owned gas station in Houston, Texas, says thieves targeted the business’s diesel fuel on four days last week, stealing more than 1,000 gallons. The thefts allegedly occurred on consecutive days in which the national gas price average repeatedly broke all-time highs.

According to the station manager, a “dark-colored van” would literally sit directly over the underground storage containers and siphon off hundreds of gallons…

Thayil said a dark-colored van was seen parking over the underground storage containers on the dates of March 8-10 — days in which the national average price for a gallon of gas broke all-time records — and siphoned 360 gallons each day.

“They hit us like the days we were paying like a real premium on the diesel fuel,” Thayil told the outlet. “Altogether it was about $5,000.”

The thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing.

I hope that you are prepared for “the new normal”.

To me, incidents where criminals actually go to private homes and drill holes in gas tanks are even more chilling. Here is one example that just happened in Pennsylvania…

A woman in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who did not want to be identified, says she and her neighbor were victims of a recent theft.

She says someone drilled a hole right into her gas tank. Home security video captured the alleged thief walking around her car with a drill and a five-gallon bucket.

Previously, criminals would siphon gas to steal fuel. But newer vehicles now have an anti-rollover valve, so thieves are now drilling right into the tank.

You may have a difficult time believing that this is actually happening in the United States of America.

But it is.

In Atlanta, police say that one man was “behind a series of costly gasoline thefts across the city”…

Police in Atlanta said they arrested a man believed to be behind a series of costly gasoline thefts across the city.

It was a story FOX 5 first reported on Tuesday. Social media has been buzzing for the last few days about someone stealing gasoline out of tanks, but not by siphoning it out, but rather drilling a hole in the bottom of the tank and letting it drain out, leaving behind thousands of dollars’ worth of damage in the process.

As the price of gasoline continues to go up, this will probably encourage even more theft.

And it will also make it more costly for ordinary American families to heat their homes.

Not too long ago, one of my readers sent me an email in which she detailed how much her heating costs have gone up just since January…

“I received an oil delivery on Friday, March 7. I got 159 gallons @ $4.59 a gal. and it my ticket was $728.00. I got a delivery on Jan 12 for 161.5 gal. and the price was $3.39 and my ticket was $548.94.”

That is nuts.

But of course this is just the beginning. We have entered a full-blown global energy crisis, and we are going to see things in the months ahead that are going to be absolutely unprecedented.

Sadly, one survey just found that rising costs are already a “significant source of stress” for 87 percent of U.S. adults…

According to the data, compiled after the APA surveyed 3,012 U.S. adults between Feb. 7-14, 87% of respondents cited rising costs of everyday items, including gas and groceries, as a “significant source of stress.” The same percentage said their mental health has been greatly impacted by “a constant stream of crises over the last two years.”

It has been estimated that rising energy prices will cost the average American family an extra $2,000 this year alone.

That is a lot of money.

I wish that I had better news for you.

I really do.

But the factors that are causing this energy crisis are not going away any time soon.

The best that we can hope for is a quick ceasefire in Ukraine. In the short-term, that would definitely help.

In the long-term, we need to realize that our world is headed into a full-blown economic meltdown.

Decades of incredibly bad decisions have brought us to this point, and the current crop of global leaders is about the worst we have ever seen.

So anyone that is waiting for some sort of miraculous turnaround is going to be waiting for a very, very long time.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: gasoline; inflation; prices; theft
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1 posted on 03/18/2022 2:01:22 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

When I visited the States, every station I went to was pre-pay, so I’m surprised there are any gas thefts.

A few years ago, my provincial government made all gas stations go prepay and all the gas thefts stopped.


2 posted on 03/18/2022 2:03:15 PM PDT by Jonty30 ( I am an extremely responsible person. When something goes wrong, my boss asks if I was responsible.)
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To: Jonty30

Pre-pay or not pre-pay has nothing to do with it.


3 posted on 03/18/2022 2:08:08 PM PDT by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc O'Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: blam
special device allowing them to bypass the payment system.

I've heard about card skimmers at gas stations, but what would they use to bypass the payment system?

4 posted on 03/18/2022 2:08:31 PM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
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To: steve86

If you’ve paid for your gas, how are they able to steal more gas than they have paid for?


5 posted on 03/18/2022 2:11:05 PM PDT by Jonty30 ( I am an extremely responsible person. When something goes wrong, my boss asks if I was responsible.)
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To: IYAS9YAS

Card skimmers collect your card information and allow access to the account of your card.


6 posted on 03/18/2022 2:12:17 PM PDT by Jonty30 ( I am an extremely responsible person. When something goes wrong, my boss asks if I was responsible.)
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To: Jonty30

Read the article silly

15 cars pulled up and filled up their tanks after business hours after someone used a special device allowing them to bypass the payment system.
Over the course of about 45 minutes, $1,600 worth of gas was stolen from the Bizzy Bee Grocery Store and Gas Station in High Point, said owner Hardik Patel.


7 posted on 03/18/2022 2:12:54 PM PDT by caww ( )
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To: blam

The high point nc hit was somebody with a remote.

The pumps use bluetooth or wifi and they just set it to “dispense”.

Might be a good idea to turn that off.

Technology does get around.


8 posted on 03/18/2022 2:13:16 PM PDT by eyedigress (Trump is my President! )
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To: blam
The thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing.

Good thing more states are passing concealed carry legislation.

It’s now time to use it.

9 posted on 03/18/2022 2:13:41 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith…)
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To: Jonty30

You obviously did’t read the article. It isn’t about thefts at the pumps.


10 posted on 03/18/2022 2:14:26 PM PDT by CodeToad (Arm up! They Have!)
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To: blam

11 posted on 03/18/2022 2:21:39 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Jonty30
Card skimmers collect your card information and allow access to the account of your card.

I get that. They didn't say the fuel was paid for with stolen card information, they said the payment system was bypassed. Im trying to understand how they did that.

12 posted on 03/18/2022 2:21:52 PM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
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To: metmom
"Good thing more states are passing concealed carry legislation."

My state just threw out the permit requirement.

13 posted on 03/18/2022 2:22:58 PM PDT by blam
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To: blam

Bkmk


14 posted on 03/18/2022 2:23:02 PM PDT by sauropod (Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.)
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To: CodeToad
It isn’t about thefts at the pumps.

The first topic was. Someone used a device to bypass the payment system at the pumps at a station in North Carolina. The second topic was siphoning from underground storage tanks at a station in Texas, and the third item was drilling into a car's tank parked in a driveway in Pennsylvania.

15 posted on 03/18/2022 2:27:07 PM PDT by IYAS9YAS (There are two kinds of people: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.)
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To: IYAS9YAS

I know that computer systems have checks built into the programming to tell them when it is ok to take the next step. I see it at work, when I work my part-time job at a gas station all the steps being checked off sequentially before it eventually approves getting gas.

Although, I have no clue as to which check is the check that gives approval to the pump to pump gas, but obviously the criminal organizations figured out how get the pump to think that the crucial step(s) was approved.

There is some sophisticated programming happening to get the pumps to do that. It wouldn’t surprise me if the criminal organizations actually bought the chain gas stations to play around with. Spending $400,000 in order to steal millions or tens of millions is a good investment for them.


16 posted on 03/18/2022 2:29:07 PM PDT by Jonty30 ( I am an extremely responsible person. When something goes wrong, my boss asks if I was responsible.)
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To: blam

This is not because prices are too high. It’s because democrats have sent the message that theft will be tolerated because the “oppressed” have a “right” to take what is “rightfully theirs” from their “oppressors.”

The entire summer of 2020 was staged by democrats to allow certain kinds of crimes and assure the perps that they had nothing to fear from law enforcement.


17 posted on 03/18/2022 2:29:50 PM PDT by I want the USA back (Government is to be feared much more than the chicom virus.)
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To: blam

“I’ve been in business for 15 years and owned other gas stations. I have never seen something like this,”

I take it he was not around in 1973 when the Arab Oil Embargo hit..


18 posted on 03/18/2022 2:47:22 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (No dog in the Unraine war, but we still root for the underdog.)
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To: I want the USA back

“This is not because prices are too high. It’s because democrats have sent the message that theft will be tolerated because the “oppressed” have a “right” to take what is “rightfully theirs” from their “oppressors.”

It’s reparation without legislation, just like taxation without representation.


19 posted on 03/18/2022 2:51:31 PM PDT by SaxxonWoods (The only way to secure your own future is to create it yourself.)
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To: blam

Back are the days of the “Five foot long OKLAHOMA Credit Card!”

Or “Arkan-saw Credit Card” depending on which state you are next to.


20 posted on 03/18/2022 2:51:37 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (No dog in the Unraine war, but we still root for the underdog.)
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