Stealing fuel from trucks has become a very lucrative business due to the escalation of diesel and gasoline prices, which are already They exceed 2 euros per liter in some suppliers. This has been reported by the Spanish Confederation of Freight Transport (CETM), which a few days ago held a meeting with the Ministry of the Interior to denounce the insecurity felt by transporters due to the lack of surveillance in service areas.
“Normally trucks have two tanks to distribute the load and we can carry 1,500 liters of diesel to take a long route. At the price that fuel is being charged, we are talking about about 3,000 euros and that represents a very significant disruption for any transporter, who also has to face the repair of the tank because they leave them unusable,” explains Carmelo González, president of the road transport employers’ association.
He assures that these are “organized mafias” and that in many cases that stolen diesel “they resell it to other carriers” on the black market: “It is a business that has an outlet because it is quality A diesel and if instead of paying 2 euros per liter, you pay 1 euro, the savings are considerable. They usually sell it to small autonomous transporters because in large companies, refueling is much more regulated.”
Although there are no official statistics on this type of crime, according to data from the CETM, they occur every year. more than 20,000 thefts linked to road transportwhich also includes the theft of merchandise. “Up to 60% of these crimes occur during mandatory stops in unsupervised rest areas or in industrial estates that lack adequate security measures, which shows the serious insufficiency of safe parking infrastructure,” denounces the employer.
The CETM is preparing a “black dot map” in which robberies against truck drivers are most frequent. “The AP-7 in Catalonia is one of the most conflictive sectionsbut there are others such as in the Antequera area, in Andalusia, or at the exit from Zaragoza on the A-2 towards Barcelona, where many robberies are also being committed,” says González.
It is easy to ‘puncture’ the tank of a truck
Sources from the Civil Traffic Guard also admit to this newspaper that this type of theft is proliferating: “Emptying the tank of a truck is relatively simple, much easier than that of a carbecause they are aluminum tanks on both sides of the tractor head and no complex tools are needed. “Simply with a punch and a hose you can transfer all the fuel from a truck to some bottles in a few minutes.”
“They are usually organized gangs of thieves that operate at night in service areas, taking advantage of the fact that the driver is sleeping. The theft barely makes a sound and drivers are usually not aware of it until they get up,” they add.
This week, the Civil Guard of Cantabria arrested two men who were caught red-handed while they stole 100 liters of fuel from a truckin an industrial estate in Camargo. That same night, damage was committed and fuel was stolen from another 16 vehicles belonging to the same company in that industrial estate.
The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) indicated this Thursday that The price of diesel has already increased by 31% (about 44.8 cents more per liter) and that of gasoline, 19% (28.2 cents), since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, on February 28.
