Liquid gold mafia exposed

The discovery of an illegal fuel depot hidden deep in the Isithebe township, has apparently exposed a large-scale stolen fuel syndicate allegedly involving the taxi industry, corrupt police and politicians on the North Coast.

The web of racketeering is well organised, including insiders in transport companies, truck drivers, garage managers, taxi associations and police and politicians who own taxis.

“These guys know how to cover up their books and even private investigators are finding it difficult to pin down offenders. This is a big syndicate and we need the Hawks to investigate,” said a police source who revealed the syndicate’s modus operandi to The North Coast Courier.

There is no fuel theft reported locally and no fuel tankers are being hijacked, however, transport companies picked up that they have been losing fuel.

Sources within the petrol industry said some North Coast service stations have been losing up to R100 000 in fuel sales a month because customers have been filling up at illegal depots at R10 per litre – compared to the current diesel price of R11.37.

The source explained that transport company insiders abuse a loophole in the system which allows for some fuel loss to spillage and evaporation, to overfill tankers at their depots.

The driver then pulls over on a quiet piece of road along the delivery route, commonly on the N2 north of the Mandeni toll gate, and offloads the extra fuel to a syndicate buyer.

They are able to bypass the tankers’ computers by means of gravity siphoning with custom manufactured pipes and fittings that siphon fuel unnoticed.

The stops are quick and when questioned by an employer about an unscheduled stop, picked up by the tanker’s GPS system, drivers usually just say they needed the toilet.

Some service station managers are apparently willing to cover for taxi drivers and issue fake receipts to those caught with suspicious quantities of fuel on board.

It is illegal to store more than 200 litres of fuel without appropriate licencing. This “get out of jail free” card issued by service stations makes it impossible to make charges stick, the source said.

“All fuel looks the same. How do you prove which tanker or garage a batch of fuel comes from?”

The source said that a number of police officers and councillors were suspected of being involved. On March 27, 42 000 litres of petrol and diesel went up in smoke and the N2 Umvoti Shell garage was partially burnt down when a generator, used to pump petrol and diesel into containers on the back of a small truck parked between two fuel tankers, sparked a raging fire.

Two truck drivers who were arrested were later released on bail. It is understood that a recent court case involving transport company Unitrans losing fuel to the syndicate, has fallen through. The illegal depot in Isithebe township endangers the safety of hundreds of school children who attend KwaVusimusi secondary school, located less than a kilometre down the road. Uncontrolled fuel run-off and fuel seeping into the soil also pose a health risk to the community.

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