Fuel fraud is everywhere
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WITH REFERENCE to ‘fuel scams’ (CM 4 August)– these are NOT conined to the UK and they remind me of an incident back in 1995. My then employer got a big order from an important customer for the non-stop express delivery of components from West Yorkshire to an Auto Plant at Zona Franca, Barcelona using transits and double-manned 7.5-tonners over several weeks. Just where the motorway forks into Cinturon Litoral (coastal road) and the inland direction near Barcelona stands a 24/7 garage, where I was surprised to be offered a one-litre bottle of gin when refuelling on my irst trip!
Even more surprising, on refusing this offer, was another offer of six vino tinto (red wine) or leather gloves etc, all of which I turned down...
Reporting this to the boss on my return brought the comment: “So that’s where ALL the money is going!” Apparently they hadn’t grasped why, from what should have been such lucrative work, the irm wasn’t making any money; it was not surprising, with one transit driver booking 125 litres when 60 was about the usual maximum .
The only non-family person in the ofice faced redundancy as a result of this scam!
Anyway, the fraud was stopped, and a special computer programme was introduced to detect any unusual fuel usage or purchase patterns.
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