[Scotsman]

Good thing the 5htgens will be sitting way low...

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Thieves puncture tanks to steal pricey gasoline
Height of trucks, SUVs makes them easy targets
Detroit News and Associated Press

Dale Fortin is getting a new kind of customer at his Detroit auto repair shop, customers who have not just been in a fender-bender or had a windshield smashed by a rock.

The soaring price of crude oil has turned gas tanks into a cache of valuable booty, and Fortin has replaced several tanks punctured or drilled by thieves thirsting for the nearly $4-a-gallon fuel inside.

"That's the new fad," he said. "I'd never seen it before gas got up this high."

While gas station drive-offs and siphoning are far more common methods of stealing gas, reports of tank and line puncturing are starting to trickle into police departments and repair shops across the country.

Some veteran mechanics and law enforcement officers say it's an unwelcome return of a crime they saw during the Middle East oil embargo of the early 1970s.

Gasoline prices surged just before the long Memorial Day holiday weekend and crept a hair higher overnight Monday to a new record national average $3.93 for a gallon of regular, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

Given their height, Fortin said pickups and sport utility vehicles are more vulnerable to the thieves who puncture the tanks and use a container to catch the fuel.

Plastic tanks are typically the target, he said, since there is less chance of a catastrophic spark, and they are easier to drill.

Andy Beesley, owner of Great Lakes Collision in Royal Oak, says he has replaced two gas tanks of customers with pickups.

Beesley said a customer brought their truck in to his shop in March after thieves stole gas by putting a hole in the truck's plastic gas tank.

"They crawled under the truck and they took a cordless drill and put a hole in the underside of the gas tank," Beesley said.

"They caught the gasoline with some sort of drain pan."

Beesley said he was not shocked by the thefts.

"We expected it," said Beesley about the thefts and the major rise in gas prices.

Troy Police Lt. Gerry Scherlinck said his suburban Detroit department this month received a report of a stored motor home whose tank was siphoned and drained of 50 gallons of gas. They also had several incidents last year in industrial parks where the gas tanks of vehicles were punctured.

"Gas is liquid gold these days, and has been for the last year-and-a-half," Scherlinck said.

"I would anticipate seeing more of these kinds of incidents as the price continues to go up."

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...63/1016/AUTO01