The rising cost of fuel makes many people contemplate undertaking illicit deeds in the hopes of evading the law but Texan thieves have managed to steal 1,000 gallons of diesel from the underground tanks at a petrol station and got away with it by the skin of their teeth.
Not a single gun was raised nor a person held up in this entire ordeal which saw a Houston based Fuqua Express petrol station have 1,000 gallons (4546 litres) of diesel stolen from its underground tanks by Texan thieves. The rising costs of fuel globally has resulted in an increase of attempted thefts from consumers who fill up and drive away without paying but the latest theft takes it to a new level in what seems like a Fast and the Furious inspired sequence of events.
Jerry Thayil, whose family is proprietor of the petrol station stated that he first noticed a discrepancy that had him combing through surveillance footage. What he noticed was a Chrysler Town & Country (or Grand Voyager on our side of the pond) with tinted windows parking over the tanks’ filling ports for 15-20 minutes before driving off. This occurred over 3 days where he suspects the minivan syphoned about 350 gallons per day.
The fuel didn’t miraculously make its way into the Chrysler Grand Voyager and Thayil further suspects that the van had a trap door at the bottom which could access the locks on the storage tanks from within although this is purely his speculation. He spoke to local Houston police just before the Chrysler returned for a fourth day of its cheeky theft and chased after it unsuccessfully.
The total value of the theft has left Thayil and his family $5,000 poorer, this equates to a whopping R74,724 and based on some quick arithmetic the stolen commodity can fill up around 75 diesel powered cars from empty.
Another Houston petrol station has suffered the same fate after a Chevron had 1,754 gallons of diesel stolen from it. It seems that as the times get tougher, certain criminals get smarter!
