Gas Siphoning & Energy Theft

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Published on the Doomstead Diner on July 27, 2014

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In what is likely to become an increasingly more prevalent problem, twice in the last week I had Gas siphoned out of my Spare Carz while I was not around.  The main reason I know about it is because in one case the siphoners left the Gas Cap off and under the rear wheel on the passenger side, so I didn’t see it before rolling over it and busting it.

Second case worse, besides Siphoning, the Perps also went under the car and cut one of the hoses (or maybe more).  The hose was on the ground under the car, I spied it when I got home.  Since I don’t know if this was the only Vandalism, I did not drive the car.  Don’t know if maybe brake lines were cut too.  Had it towed over to the shop for a checkup and repair.  $80 just for the tow.  Don’t know what the repair bill will be yet.  My ATT Road Service Plan doesn’t cover Vandalism.

Fortunately the Tioga Bugout Machine which has the largest Gas Tank at around 50 gallons wasn’t hit so far.  I have a locking gas cap on that one.  I went to Auto Zone and bought Locking Gas Caps for the other two vehicles also now.  Main issue with locking gas caps is they are very easily defeated, all you need is a portable electric drill.  You drill into the cap and this prevents it from free spinning while the drill bit is embedded in the cap.  I figured this out when I lost the keys to a locking gas cap a while back.  Fortunately, most siphoners haven’t figured that out yet, and they just move on to a car without a locking gas cap.

I am considering now getting Security Cameras, but this is another expense and also pretty easily defeated if the siphoner wears a hoodie and duct tapes over his license plate, if the license plate even gets in the picture.

Large Scale Siphoning stories at Gas Stations are also starting to appear.

Thieves In South Florida Siphoning Fuel From Gas Stations

Organized crime groups in South Florida are reportedly siphoning gasoline and diesel fuel from stations in broad daylight.

John Peach, vice president of operations for Victory Petroleum, says that thieves park on top of underground storage tanks at gas stations and remove false bottoms from their large vehicles, usually SUV or minivans, and lower a hose into the tank, stealing thousands of dollars of gas within minutes.

Peach joins Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson to talk about this growing trend in Florida.
Guest

John Peach, vice president of operations for Victory Petroleum.

Transcript

JEREMY HOBSON, HOST:

It’s HERE AND NOW.

South Florida is dealing with an unusual crime wave: Thieves stealing gasoline and diesel fuel from gas stations in broad daylight. The thieves are using a siphoning and then storing the fuel in the back of their car.

Joining us now is John Peach, Vice President of Operations for Victory Petroleum, which owns and operates almost 200 gas stations in and around Miami/Dade County. John, thanks for being with us.

JOHN PEACH: Thank you, Jeremy.

HOBSON: Well, how exactly does this scheme work?

PEACH: Sure. So these people, who operate in organized crime, essentially identify properties that they target as places where they can steal fuel from. They pull up above our tank field. It’s usually a two to three-man operation involving at least two cars. And they compromise the lock on our tank field, which were the underground storage tanks sit. And they…

HOBSON: This is right on top of the parking lot where you would pull in to get your gas.

PEACH: Yes, sir. Correct. While the person who is in the car that actually performs a siphoning is going about the act of siphoning, they usually have one to two people inside of the convenient store who keep an eye on our employees and our control systems, to make sure that nothing identifies that the crime is going on. In the car, which has a false floorboard, removes the floorboard; they break the lock that sits on top of the underground storage tank.

And they drop a siphon pump down into either the diesel or the gasoline tank, which is hooked up to a motor on the car battery. And they turn on the motor and they can take anywhere from – we’ve seen 70 up to 600 gallons in about 10 minutes.

HOBSON: Ten minutes and no one notices.

PEACH: We do notice. We’ve had instances where our employees have noticed that this was going on. Again, we do have control points in place that identify when things like this happen. We have security systems, cameras. We have alarms that monitor the tank levels with the product underground, so that if product is leaving the tanks – in a manner other than going out of pump, the hose into somebody’s car – an alarm would go off.

And obviously our employees just have general awareness or they’re looking outside to see what’s going on. But, again, these people are operating in organized crime so it’s tough to have your employees stop this. It’s really a job for the local police department to do.

HOBSON: And then they take this gas or this diesel, and they try to resell it on the black market. What is the black market for gas and diesel? How do you even do that?

PEACH: Sure. So what they do is after they steal the product from a retail gas property, like the ones that my company owns and operates, they transport it to wherever it is that they resell it. I would be speculating if I told you that I knew where they resold it. It’s our assumption that they sell it for under market value, because if they were selling this at retail this market wouldn’t exist.

HOBSON: How much are you losing over all? And how much can they make on this?

PEACH: We’re losing tens of thousands of dollars. And other companies in the industry down here in South Florida, Central Florida, and I would speculate but probably other parts of the country are also losing as much money.

HOBSON: And do you have any sense of how much they can make reselling it?

PEACH: I don’t but it’s my guess that it’s a thriving business. We have seen an uptick in this type of organized crime, as the price of the commodity has risen. Probably starting back in October or November, we had a measurable increase of this kind of crime. Obviously we represent a cross sample of the larger industry down here in South Florida, but our sample size is pretty appropriate in the sense that we are in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Naples, which represents most of South Florida.

And we’ve had properties that have been siphoned all over our geography. Also interesting to point out here that this used to be exclusive to diesel and, in recent months, we have actually had our first incidents of people siphoning gasoline from us.

HOBSON: Well, and I want to ask you about that because you say that having gasoline sitting in the back of a car is actually more dangerous than with diesel, right?

PEACH: Yes, sir. Gasoline is more explosive, that’s correct.

HOBSON: And what would it take to cause an explosion? It’s not just like driving around with a tank of gas in your car in the fuel tank. This is much more likely to be ignited by even a small spark, right?

PEACH: Yes, a couple of things to point out here. So the gas station environment, the retail gas environment, is a pretty well-controlled and secured; what I would refer to as a closed loop environment. So a truck brings product from a port, a rack, a terminal and then drops it in an underground storage tank. And then when they drop product into the underground storage tank, they recover the vapors that are sitting underground where the product used to be.

So in a perfect environment this is a closed loop circuit. When somebody introduces the act of siphoning into this environment without equipment – like a gasoline tanker or a truck – to recapture vapor, right there is where the problem begins. These people are operating siphon motors that we assume operate off a battery of their car. And we are also operating under the assumption that they don’t ground their vehicle properly. So this environment creates static electricity concerns, not to mention just general concerns of motors operating over 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 gallons of gasoline or diesel, very concerning.

In addition to that, we think about the gas tank or diesel tank on your automobile or my automobile, it’s logically placed. There was a reason that the automobile manufacturer put it where they put it on the car, to make sure that in the event of an automobile accident, the least problems could develop. And these people have, you know, 70 to 600 gallons of gasoline or diesel basically sitting in a very unsecured and illogically placed drum in the back of their car. So a common automobile accident would be very dangerous.

HOBSON: Do you think you’ll be able to catch all the people who are doing this?

PEACH: People get caught from time to time. If you look in the news and do a Google search, for instance, you’ll see that this kind of organized crime has existed for a while. From time to time these people do get caught. Sometimes they get caught just in routine traffic stops. Other times local law enforcement agencies see a case through.

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But again, our concern in this is, it’s really three-fold. The act of siphoning, it’s dangerous, it’s dangerous to our customers. The act of transporting non-secured fuel on our city streets, it’s dangerous. You think about your friends, your family possibly getting in an automobile accident with one of these siphoning vans.

And then reselling fuel, you know, fuel is obviously a regulated industry, and you think about what they might be doing with the fuel before they turn around and resell it into automobiles. Again, those vehicles driving our city streets is concerning.

HOBSON: Now gas prices are going up a little bit right now, but they’ve held relatively steady for some times. Do you think this is just about the fact that gas is more expensive?

PEACH: No, I don’t necessarily think it’s just about the fact that gas and/or diesel has gotten more expensive. I think that these criminals have gotten more brazen over time with their success in procuring product from properties like ours in this manner. It used to be exclusive to nighttime and properties off the city grid. Now they’re doing it during daytime at properties that are deep in the city grid and highly visible, and I think with their success has come a more thriving market to turn around and resell this product.

HOBSON: That’s John Peach, vice president of operations for Victory Petroleum in South Florida. It operates almost 200 gas stations in and around Miami Dade. John, thanks so much.

PEACH: My pleasure. Thank you, Jeremy.

Now, while I think “Organized Crime” has some part in this, really it doesn’t take much organization, 3 or 4 guys can do it with hardware purchased at Home Depot.  Say you and 4 buddies in a Cul de Sac in some McMansion development each spend $100/wk in gas.  At $4/gal, that is 25 gallons each which is pretty typical between commuting and tooling around the neighborhood doing errands.  If you have a big enough tank and can scarf up 1000 Gallons in 10 minutes, pulling off one of these stunts every couple of months keeps all your tanks full up for FREE! You save $5000/year after tax income this way!

Now, one would think the Gas stations could have a better security system.  There could be some kind of Sensor that detects when a siphon hose goes down in the tank.  This would then automatically phone the local Gestapo to come speeding to the scene of the crime.

That might work if there are tons of free cops cruising the neighborhood, but most communities don’t have so many cops and this is pretty low priority on the crime list.  For a gas station out in a rural area, the chances the cops would make it to the scene before the perps have left with the gas is small.

This phenomena among many others is likely to make gas harder and harder to come by.  Smaller stations getting ripped off will have to shut down.  Prices will have to rise to offset the “shrinkage” as it is known in the retail biz when merchandise is shoplifted.

Far as EVs go, the problem is even worse with them, as there are miles of unmonitored electrical transmission cables where with the right setup, you could tap into the power supply and recharge your EV for free.  For tiny EVs like my EWz, I already mentioned how EZ it would be to go into a laundromat or coffee shop and plug in the batteries for a recharge. Also, here in Alaska because of the Cold in Winter, many places have outdoor electric outlets for you to plug in the Block Heater for your car.  If you are driving an EV, you could ALSO plug the car battery in too for a recharge while you eat dinner.  To stop this, every plug would need a Meter on it and a Switch controlled from inside the restaraunt, a huge expense there.

Even outside the EV issue, theft of Energy from the Electrical Grid is SOP for many countries in the 3rd World, from Brasil to India, just for basic power to run household appliances.

The issue is, if you make it basically a REQUIREMENT to buy energy, but a significant portion of the population is too POOR to buy the energy, THEFT will ensue.

Why is it a REQUIREMENT to buy Energy?  Well, first of there are LAWS which mandate it.  Here in Alaska for instance, your domicile MUST have Hot and Cold running water and Electricity if you have any kids.  If you are an adult living by yourself out in the Bush, you can live in a cabin with an outhouse, but soon as you procreate, if your domicile does not have these “necessities” of Industrial Living, Child Protective Services can remove your kidz and send them to the Foster Care system.

In about every Big Shity, if you don’t maintain the Gas Bill, Electric Bill, Water Bill etc to your McMansion, the local “authorities” can and will drop in to CONDEMN the property.  One of the Diners, WHD had this situation ongoing for a while before he finally fortunately got re-employed and was able to start paying these Bills again.

Beyond the energy to run your McMansion, why is it a near MANDATE that you buy energy for travel?

To get to & fro work if you are fortunate enough to still have a JOB, because of the way the infrastructure of the society was built out, in most places you MUST have a car to traverse the distance between work and home.  Even inside the few Big Shities with a decent Public Transportation system, you have to pay the Bus Fares and Subway Fares, in NYC these days now up to $2.50 a trip.  When I was riding these rails regularly in the 70s, the price was 25-35 CENTS. My parents generation rode the Subways for a NICKEL, but in the Great Depression, even that was too much for many to afford.

In every aspect of the society, from the domicile in which you live to the travel you do every day, consumption of energy is mandated, if not legally than by social pressure.  Anyone living without these “necessities” is a FAILURE, homeless people living in Tents don’t get much respect in the society, in fact probably less than people in PRISON, where once in you get 3 Hots & A Cot.  In this case the energy bills for the Prison paid for out of taxation, or further debt issuance in reality.

Today, the FSoA has more people in PRISON than any other country in the world.  Why are so many in there?  Basically because the Industrial Economy does not pay enough people a living wage to afford the energy cost of this lifestyle.  In the end, they turn to a life of “crime”, selling drugs or siphoning gas, prostitution, whatever it takes to get by.

Like the old Workhouses of the British Empire in the Charles Dickens years, Prisons here have become the final stop for the portion of the population that can’t get on the Gravy Train for one reason or another.  Maybe its poor education, maybe there are few opportunities where they live, maybe they are just stupid, but whatever the reason here the “solution” of dropping them in prison is pretty stupid itself.  It costs around $35K to keep anybody in prison.  If you just handed most of these folks $25K, they probably could get by without resorting to crime, but then why would anyone work a Menial Job paying $25K?  Not to mention, a lot of Prison Guards would go Unemployed here, and a lot of Private Companies running Prisons would go outta biz!

People who successfully negotiated the Industrial paradigm, got a “good” job paying a high income by and large do not grasp or understand that the number of said jobs are far less than the size of the population, and so always with this sort of economy 50% or more of the population can barely meet the bills, and that is when the paradigm is working and there is copious energy to waste.  when it gets to the point where the cost of GETTING to work to earn a Minimum Wage that is less than the cost of fuel to get to work, it no longer makes economic sense to GO to work. This situation is already in full swing in places like Greece & Spain, but already even apparent here on the Last Great Frontier, where there still is a little Fossil Fuel energy left to extract, and a low population too.

As the price of Energy rises, it becomes much more profitable and worthwhile to do Energy theft.  At low prices it is not worth the risk, but at high prices the risk is more worth taking.  Generally speaking, if the theft is below $500, it’s a misdemeanor.  From Kentucky:

Under a new law which went into effect on June 25, 2009, the dollar amount for felony offenses has been increased.

A class D felony now requires theft , extortion or damage to property of a minimum of $500, A class C felony now requires $10,000.

The worst you get for Class C Felony of this type is probably Probation.  Its not violent crime, not drug related crime, it doesn’t get a prison sentence usually, if you have a decent lawyer anyhow.  Also, unless you actually are doing this on the big scale, it’s a misdemeanor.  Keep your amount down below 125 gallons or so, even if the cops catch you, it’s not a big crime.  That is easily enough gas to run your SUV for a month.

For now, hopefully the Locking Gas Caps will be enough to deter the local siphoners from hitting my spare carz as Gas Station while I am not around.  However, if this is ALREADY occuring up here where things aren’t really too bad overall, they are bound to be a lot worse in more depressed areas of the country, and will get worse here over time.

I expect to see a great deal of Energy Theft going on as things progress in this spin down, at both the low consumer level of Gas Siphoners, and at the Nation State level of Militaries commandeering Oil Fields in various nations at war.  Joe Biden’s son already appears to be trying such Profiteering in Novorossiya.

This goes on until there is nothing left to steal, and the infrastructure for distribution breaks down on the Grand Scale.

On the local scale, don’t be surprised if you exit Walmart tomorrow and find your Gas Tank emptied.

RE