Meghalaya police nabs 14 inter-state fuel theft, adulteration racket

Shillong: Fourteen people, including a juvenile have been arrested by the Meghalaya police in connection with the running of an inter-state racket to adulterate petrol and diesel, a police official said on Sunday.
A police official said the 14 people were apprehended by a special police team from seven locations along the National Highway 6 under Ri-Bhoi district during raids conducted on Saturday based on source information about widespread fuel theft from oil tankers and subsequent fuel adulteration.
Apart from the apprehended persons, police also recovered items used in storage of oil siphoned from tankers enroute to the designated destination were seized.
Eight vehicles, materials used to adulterate oil products were recovered and seized in these locations.
The other seized materials included 325 empty barrels and multiple barrels containing suspected gasoline, diesel, and kerosene.
“The modus operandi found in this case was that the oil tankers enroute to different locations in Meghalaya, Barak Valley of Assam, Mizoram and Tripura pass through locations along NH 6 and enter the locations,” Deputy Inspector General of Police (Eastern Range), Davies Marak said.
“On entering these locations, they siphoned off on an average 100 litres of fuel from the oil tankers and leave the location for their respective destinations. The whole operation lasts in between 10-15 minutes,” he said.
Marak said that the locations along the National Highway are usually makeshift-shacks having big gates covered with CGI sheets to ensure no visibility from the highways and have an exit and entry gate for quick operation.
“A particular centre operating this scam was found to be well equipped with equipment required for the pilferage and profileration of fuel by methods of adulteration,” the police officer said.
Moreover, he said their strategic location along the highway facilitates around 400 fuel tankers on a daily basis.
“The pilfered fuel amounting to huge quantity is then sold at discounted price to various places and used for adulteration creating huge loss to the economy and loss to end users of such products who are unaware,” the police officer informed.
Meanwhile, Meghalaya police have registered a case at the Crime Branch Police Station, Shillong.
Marak said investigation to unearth forward and backward linkages is being carried out as it appears to be part of an organised crime syndicate.