Truck parked over station's tanks used to steal diesel fuel
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
By Jim McKinnon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
This photo from a surveillance camera at a Mercer County gasoline station shows the truck and trailer that police suspect was used to siphon diesel fuel.

A retrofitted pickup truck and trailer, believed to have been used to steal thousands of gallons of diesel fuel from a Mercer County gas station, has been seized from an asphalt contractor in Ohio.

The truck and trailer had been used in three thefts, dating to late last year, during which the trailer was parked above the BP gas underground storage tanks at a convenience store in Hermitage, Deputy Police Chief Edward Holiga said today.

The trailer was rigged on the bottom with a trap door and rubber flaps that hang to the ground to conceal the operation.

Someone inside the trailer then would siphon off diesel fuel from the storage tanks, pumping it into a makeshift tank inside the trailer.

Dep. Chief Holiga said the latest incident was reported April 28. All three incidents were captured on video surveillance cameras.

After local news stations broadcast the images, police yesterday got a tip that the pickup and rigged trailer were on the property of Larry Donaldson, owner of a small asphalt and trucking company on Kinsman Road in North Bloomfield in rural Trumbull County.

Police observed the truck and trailer around 7 p.m. yesterday. Officers from Hermitage and Trumbull County sheriff's deputies, armed with a search warrant, returned to the property at about 12:30 a.m. today.

Inside the trailer, investigators found a wall of straw from the ceiling to the floor of the trailer. The straw only concealed a wooden partition, behind which the siphoning apparatus was found.

In the compartment police found a, large, empty propane cylinder about 15-feet long. The tank smelled of diesel fuel, Mr. Holiga said.

Investigators determined the thieves had used the diesel engine of the pickup truck as a vacuum to suck the diesel fuel through hoses from the gas station storage tank into the former propane tank inside the trailer.

Officers searched Mr. Donaldson's property and found numerous fuel tanks, including a 5,000-gallon storage hold with about 500 gallons of diesel fuel inside.

No one has been charged in connection with the thefts, but the authorities in Trumbull and Mercer counties continue to investigate.

At least $4,500 worth of diesel fuel was reported stolen after the convenience store checked its electronic measuring devices, police said.

Forget that, I'm just gonna sell the same set of non-existent rims to multiple people then blame DHL for losing them.