[shooter223]

guess he thought the prices were too high

[bill1952]

Damn, a very spry 70 year old!

Did he have a fuel tanker?
How else could you steal 10000 gallons?

[GOPmember]

He definitely deserves an ‘A’ for ingenuity.

[Spok]

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you siphon from UNDERGROUND tanks? I was never able to get my ‘Oklahoma credit card’ to work on anything but above ground tanks.

[DManA]

I smell an inside job.

But so far, only one gas station has come forward.

[ozzymandus]

Gee, I hate to see crooks cheating other crooks! (Tee-hee!)

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Judd estimates the operation has been going on since January, and said Gibson was responsible for stealing between 3,000 and 10,000 gallons of fuel each week from gas stations. Gibson would put the stolen fuel in larger tanks at his business property, Crews Towing, LLC at 3435 Recker Highway in Winter Haven and sell it to friends, arrest records indicate.

Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. The thief owned a towing company and was using it in his own trucks and selling it to his friends.

[lilylangtree]

Geez, ingenious idea. Whoever the tipster was should be boiled in oil.

[mysterio]

Thieves getting robbed by thieves.

[Who dat?]

"My big concern is, how could a station lose hundreds of gallons of fuel and not report it?" Judd asked.

That’s an easy one. You’re talking about gas stations and convenience stores. The only person that cares is the owner. The hired help only care that the till doesn’t come up short (if they even care about that) and that they don’t get caught lifting cigarettes or beer.

Owner comes up missing fuel that didn’t get pumped through the pump meters and his first assumption is that the tanks are leaking. Leaking tanks are a big deal. If a station owner really has leaking tanks he’d probably rather quietly/quickly unload the joint on someone else and let them deal with it (if possible – usually they’ll test tanks and ground for contamination before a sale).

[ASOC]

Interesting story.

There was a guy in Las Vegas who collected dry cleaning fuild for ‘diposal’ - and then later mix it into the cheap gas that was sold locally.

He was found out when his tranfer tank setup caught fire - visible to most of the valley. Located in the - then desert - area across from Nellis AFB Area III.

And gas was less than a dollar then (sigh)

[AnAmericanMother]

This guy is an amateur.

We had a case here in GA back in the 70s where just about the entire government of a small Georgia town was stealing gasoline from the interstate pipeline and selling it on the sly.

There was a book out - The Trial of the Tallapoosa Twenty - vanity press, cheap paperback, badly written (and absolutely the worst photo of the U.S. Attorney you could imagine on the back cover), but it tells the whole story. If you can find a copy.

Friend of mine lived in Tallapoosa at the time. It was quite a scandal and nine days wonder when basically the entire city government went off to federal prison . . . .

[Larry Lucido]

“I’m old! I was confused!”

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

There was a case a couple years ago out on the East coast. It seems some Russian Mafia types bought a self serve gas station. They gimmicked the pumps to record credit card numbers as customers made "pay at the pump" purchases. It the evening they would drive around the city with their "tanker" (car with back seat and trunk gutted and replaced with a 700 gallon tank), buying twenty gallons here and twenty five there, paying with the stolen credit card numbers. Before quitting time, they would unload the purloined gas into their underground storage tank.

I believe the scheme fell apart when the tanker car sprung a leak and blew up, toasting the driver.

Regards,
GtG

[IronJack]

It only seems fair. The oil companies steal millions of dollars from us every day. In broad daylight.