Warning: red diesel gangs are expanding into Britain
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• by Guy Sheppard Criminal gangs in Northern Ireland who launder red diesel and then sell it on the black market are increasingly targeting customers in mainland Britain, a road haulage leader claims.
Phil Flanders, regional director of the Road Haulage Association in Scotland and Northern Ireland, says buyers are often threatened with violence if they refuse to reorder the illegal fuel, which contains acid residues that are known to seriously damage vehicle engines.
"Like any industry, it needs to grow and Northern Ireland is only a small part of the UK market so if they want to make more money, they have to come to the mainland," he adds.
Customs & Excise denies that fuel smuggling is a serious problem on the mainland but Flanders claims the government may be turning a blind eye to the issue because the gangs are run by paramilitary groups: "I have heard people in Northern Ireland say the government is doing this because it doesn't want to upset the political situation there."
Flanders claims that most of the fuel arrives in southern Scotland in special tanks hidden on the backs of trailers.
In a BBC Radio 4 programme broadcast last week the owner of a chain of Yorkshire filling stations said he was offered diesel at 53p/lit when it was retailing at around 74p/lit. An unnamed haulier from Liverpool said he had bought 6,000 litres of diesel at 25p/lit from a door-to-door salesman.
Jonathan Akerman of the Petrol Retailers' Association agrees that the market in illegal fuel is growing but says there is no research to show how widespread it is. "The government should investigate because it is losing hundreds of millions of pounds a year in tax revenue and because it is undermining the legitimate fuel retailing market," he suggests.
A spokesman for Customs & Excise says that although diesel laundering and smuggling is a major problem in Northern
Ireland, it is not spreading from there to the mainland. He says customers should remember that, as well as having to pay back tax plus a fine if caught with laundered fuel, the acid residue used to remove the dye will damage engine fuel pumps.
• Contact Customs hotline, 0800 595000. II See Comment, page 7.