The Great Fuel Robbery Panorama

It's the perfect criminal commodity. You're looking at the theft of

something that is needed by the majority of the population.

How did you get rid of the fuel you stole? I sold it on the streets.

A huge number of motorists are tempted.

They are selling that for less than 90 pence a litre.

If you can get it cheap, you are prepared to do anything to get hold

of it. That means breaking the law.

I have a job to do. The brofts lining the pockets of

organised crime. The people at the top of this are

the terrorists of yesteryear, who would like to be the oil barons of

tomorrow. Tonight, Panorama investigates the

What we put in our tanks is the very lifeblood of the British

economy. But fuel prices here are now

amongst the highest in Europe, making our petrol and diesel more

valuable than ever. But the rising cost of this

commodity has put it at the heart of a massive black market. Tonight

with exclusive access to those tackling it head on, we'll expose

the multi-million pound hidden crime that stretches from the

ordinary drivers of the garage forecourt, through to a dark and a

dangerous underworld. A Manchester petrol station. This

footage shows a motorist filling up the tank of his white car.

He's about to take part in a crime which is costing the UK tens of

millions. He's one of the country's most pro-

I havic fuel thieves. He went to a represental company

and hired a vehicle in his own name. He targets similar vehicles of

those he rented, find a vehicle, steal a numberplate and stick that

on to the vehicle he has hired. Pull up at a pump, in a separate

area to where he has taken another plate from and steal large amounts

of fuel. Hundreds of pounds in some cases. Often there are canisters in

the back of the car to fill up whilst at the pump.

Strangeways Prison, Manchester. Now it is home to the next ten

months to the fuel thief Detective Inspector Turner and his colleagues,

where they have spent so long tracking them down.

How did you get rid of the fuel you stole? I sold it on the streets.

Young kids would get on it. They would wave at you and laugh. Other

people would get on it and smile. So, what do you take from that?

crime would net Paul Rekia thousands.

He saw it as easy money. I know it's criminal, but it was

simple criminal, if you know what I mean.

But, yeah, there is nothing complicated about it now.

Paul Rekia's case is far from a one off.

This CCTV footage of other drive- offs from around the country.

According to those who monitor forecourt losses across the UK, �15

million of fuel was stolen in this way last year. Not everyone region

is seeing an increase in fuel crime, but some police forces like Thames

Valley are seeing significant rises. There are certain petrol stations

where the repeats are literally running into the hundreds. If you

extrapolate that into the force and nationally, you are talking

hundreds of thousands of crimes and that is not reported by the petrol

companies. In Superintendent Gilbert Houalla's

force, forecourt drive-offs now account for a third of car re-lated

crime. When we arrest people, we interview

them and ask why, the feedbackis that there is a huge market for

fuel. The trade body BOSS which

represents the petrol stations says that they are working closely with

the enforcement agencies to reduce the forecourt drive-offs. There is

a new system to report these crimes more effectively.

Forecourt drive-offs are a crude and simple way of stealing fuel for

the ordinary motorist who wants a free tankful. In the last two years

the cost of petrol and diesel has risen by a third. 60% of the price

that is paid at the pump is taxed. Such are the profits, that there

now exists a new level of organised crime.

It is early morning in Chelmsford, Essex. A team of Her Majesty HM

Revenue & Customs officers are being briefed.

We believe that one of the units where you are going, there is a

track unit across the entrance. I've been allowed access to this

specialist team of fuel fraud investigators. We have to protect

some of their identities for security reasons.

If there is any nonsense from anybody, I'm talking about

obstruction, all of the rest of it, they are arrested, it is as simple

as that. Good luck. Today's operation is a raid on a

business that they believe is using illegal fuel.

They'll be looking for red diesel, a subsidised or rebeated fuel that

farmers and building contractors are legally allowed to use for off-

road vehicles like tractors and diggers.

I'm about to tern the target premises which is on the left.

A team of officers goes on ahead to secure the yard.

The liquid that they are looking for is dyed a distinctive cherry

red colour to distinguish it from legal road fuel.

Hello? Right, what is in there? Let me have a look.

It's against the law for anyone it use red diesel on the road. It

means that the taxman is not being paid.

Hello? Who is that? The owner of the tanker is contacted.

I'm from HM Revenue & Customs... Well,iful, we can't wait. I have --

well, unfortunately, we can't wait. I have a writ of assistance which

gives me the authority to enter the premises, if necessary, by force.

I'm not sill y, I have a job to do. With time against them, the team

Inside the officers set to work dipping for fuel samples from every

vehicle in the yard. The officers find what they came

looking for. This should not be running on red?

No. This is a fully taxed road vehicle. You will notice that the

vehicle has the tax for the road. It is an offence, whether the

vehicle is on or off the road. It is not just red diesel that this

company is illegally profiting from. I think that this is aviation fuel.

Aviation fuel? Yes. You can run aviation fuel in your

car or in your truck? You would do serious damage to your vehicle.

Right. Well, we found a tanker, a blue

tanker full of contaminated fuel with red diesel that we have seized.

There are two heavy goods vehicles driving on red diesel, a large

transit van there, that is also on red. They've been seized. There is

a tanker over there that looks like it has rocket fuel. We have to have

that tested properly, but it is an illegal substance. So a lot of fuel

here that should not be here and the business is obviously running

on cheap diesel. But for many businesses illegally

avoiding fuel tax seems the lesser of two evils when the alternative

is going under. Three quarters of the transplant industry who

instructed insolvency firms site the cost of fuel as the reason for

closure. Others are selling up. Jim Dodd is a case in point. He ran

his family's haulage firm in Maidstone for more than 30 years.

He was faced with rising fuel costs in the UK and as we have the most

heavily taxed fuel in the EU, he found himself up against

competition from his rivals, operating on cheaper fuel from the

continent. It is like having a boxing match

with one arm tied behind my back. I have to have two hands to do my job.

I had one. That is why I sold my 100-year-old family business.

You felt you could not compete? It was not fair? It wasn't fair. It

isn't fair. It is not fair it people doing the job. When I look

at hauliers that I know, all family-owned companies, they ask

how did I that? How did I get somebody to buy it? They would sell

out tomorrow. I am on about big, big privately-owned haulage

industries. You put this down to the cost of

fuel? So, who is responsible for the cost? The trade body that

represents the main oil refineries that supply the UK says it is not

the oil company. We take in the UK, right through

the supply chain, to the retailer it is good value. Relative to

Europe we provide consistently the cheapest pre-tax petrol and diesel

product in Europe. Once you put on duty and VAT, that is very much a

different matter. So, you can see the bulk of that is really going to

the Government. Around 60% of the price of the pump

is taxed. We asked the Treasury for an interview, but they declined. In

a statement they told us that the price of fuel is determined by a

range of factors and the retail price is ultimately a commercial

decision. They said that the estimated I lift

market share for diesel in Britain has been reduced from 10% of the

market to 4% over seven years. And as part of a �1.9 billion

package to ease the burden on motorists they have introduced a

range of measures that means that petrol is six pence a litre claeper

than it otherwise would have been. -- cheaper than it otherwise would

have been. This is Brooklands. The sight of the world's first racing

circuit. Purpose-built when the price of fuel just did not come

One man is now the public face of the Fair Fuel UK campaign, he is

battle for cheaper fuel for all. You're not going to get much to the

tpwalon driving like that? would be surprised.

Quentin Willson believes that the high price at the pump is skewing

society's moral come pass. The fact that people are stealing

fuel says two things, doesn't it? It says that it's become a

different commodity to what it was two or three years ago and secondly,

it is far too expensive and far too valuable now to be good and law-

abiding and goo brunt, or to steal fuel, and I'm not for a minute

condoning that, but to be in a situation as to say you have to

steal fuel to keep the business going as it is being taxed too much.

So if you can get it cheap, you are prepared to do almost anything to

get hold of it But how far would ordinary people go to get their

fuel on the cheap? Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The famous street murals depict a long and bloody political struggle.

Those who develop the criminal practises used to fund this are

focusing their attention on fuel crime and in the pursuit of profit,

old enemies have come together. One former member of the Northern

Ireland Affairs Committee has spent years monitoring organised crime

and paramilitary activity in the province.

The type of people that are probably involved at the top of

this are the terrorists of yesteryear, who would like to be

the oil barons of tomorrow. The advantage of tens of millions of

pounds often will outweigh any parochial differences they may have

held in the past. Does it surprise you? No, it

doesn't. It doesn't surprise me. When you get into a post conflict

era and people are looking fore -- for other illegal activities, they

don't allow past prejudices to get in the way of a nice profit.

In order to safeguard that profit and avoid detection, the organised

criminals have turned their attention to the cheaper, lesser

taxed red diesel. The gangs have been developing increasingly

sophisticated ways of stripping out the red dye that marks it as being

illegal for use on the road. It is called fuel laundering. Concealed

in a barn on farmland, this footage A filtration system of pumps and

bleaching agents remove the chemical markers and dyes from the

rebated fuel. Its job, quite simply, to turn the red diesel into clear

white liquid. To the naked eye, it now looks perfectly legal and is

ready to be transported across the country for sale to ordinary

motorists. I wanted to track down where the fuel is being sold. I'd

heard about so-called huckster sites - pop-up petrol stations

which sell this cheap illegal fuel to ordinary motorists, willing to

turn a blind eye to its origins. In a backstreet lane in Belfast's city

centre, I notice a small industrial yard. Tucked discreetly behind a

Taxi after taxi drives in and fills The following day it's exactly the

same. It doesn't look like any petrol station I've seen. The guy

who does the filling up is very nervous, he's very suspicious,

always looks around. But I am hoping I can have a chat with him.

Maybe he would be able to give me more information about illegal fuel.

But having been warned about the kind of people involved in this

industry, the only option is to film my approach secretly. Hello,

how are you doing, can you help me? The man tells me he doesn't work

here. He's just covering. Is there any way I can speak to whoever?

This site here, right, is this like any kind of petrol station you

would get on the mainland. Because you don't kind of get petrol

stations like this. But you are acting like this is your first day

It was clear I wasn't going to get any useful information here. The

only way for me to find out more about sites like this one was from

those who are all too familiar with the criminal gangs. This is

Northern Ireland's HMRC illegal fuels team. It's dangerous work,

often requiring heavily-armed specialist police units to escort

them. Some jobs involve entering areas previously hostile to

enforcement agencies of any kind. And shutting down operations at

every level of this criminal But with all the back up in the

world, in order to prove a crime has been committed in the first

place, the officers sometimes have to go in alone. To find out more

about illegal fuel in Northern Ireland and the pop-up petrol

stations which sell it, we've been allowed to accompany the HMRC fuels

team. They believe this fuel yard is run by criminals. An undercover

purchase takes place. �20, please. The signs outside promise the

cheapest fuel in Belfast. Thanks, love, cheers. Within minutes, the

fuel is tested. It's illegal and the site is immediately taken apart.

It's one of 97 illegal pop-up petrol stations found in Northern

Ireland in the last year, some reportedly selling fuel at almost

half the normal price yet still making a very tidy profit. The

following day I'm taken on another operation - one which demonstrates

just how profitable this crime can just how profitable this crime can

be. 86.9p a litre. Yes, Belfast diesel is �1.45 a litre and you are

right, we have intelligence that taxi drivers have been acquiring

for under 90 pence a litre. And there it is. 86.9. Unlike most

illegal huckster sites, this one illegal huckster sites, this one

has left a paper trail. Books of receipts for every transaction over

the last year. This petrol station is taking in �22,000 a month. Every

month. That's big money. For a place like this? Big money. Tests

on the 10,000 litres of diesel found at the site should worry

anybody putting this fuel into their tank. It's all cracked

underneath as well, the whole thing is cracked. That is just from the

chemicals that have been in these fuels. There has been acid used in

this process or some other chemicals which is affecting the

test tube. After tests confirm the fuel is illegal, the man working

there is immediately arrested. As the officers prepare to dismantle

the huckster site, a customer turns up. I was going to the Michalik's.

He's been running on red. This guy has come to fill his car just as he

would have at a normal filling station. He's got all the kids in

the back of the car. Presumably if that is running on red, which is

looks like it is, you would seize the car. If it is running on red,

which it looks like it is, you would seize the car. That's a

family car. To stop his car from being seized on the spot, the

driver agrees to pay a �500 fine. Across the UK in the last year,

Customs have discovered 23 large- scale fuel laundering plants and

raided 200 huckster sites like this one. But as fast as Customs are

shutting them down, another is ready to take its place. And

Ulster's fuel criminals may have set their sights on a much bigger

market just across the water. The people at the top know there is

a much larger market to appeal to in the UK in terms of fuel. There

are over 55 million people to appeal to, particularly in terms of

fuel. Here there are two million people. Once it gets across in the

ferry or whatever transportation method that they use to get it to

mainland GB, it's much easier Back across the water and it's

clear just how widespread this crime is becoming. If high prices

are fuelling the black market, it's ordinary motorists who are funding

it. And enforcement agencies are finding illegal fuel being used in

people's tanks. You put red in previous... Two weeks ago, only a

gallon to keep it running because I did the clutch on it. This is the

public face of fuel enforcement. Roadside stops and random tank dips.

Today we're with Revenue & Customs in South Wales. Within a few hours,

several motorists are caught with illegal red diesel in their tanks.

I didn't put an awful lot in there, I can't afford it. Yes but it's an

absolute offence. Last year, more than 3,000 UK motorists were caught

running their cars on illegal fuel. But Customs know that random

roadside checks will only catch a fraction of those drivers prepared

to break the law in this way. And the police are starting to see fuel

A closed petrol station on Birmingham's A34. A white tanker

pulls into the forecourt. Two men in hi-vis jackets place vacuum

pipes into the underground tanks. In full view of passing traffic,

this petrol station is about to be completely sucked dry of its fuel.

We were out on patrol, came off M6 motorway, travelling along this

dual carriage, the A34, heading towards Birmingham City Centre. The

Shell petrol station, we happened to see this white tanker on the

forecourt, with somebody stood on top of it, as we drove past,

believe it or not. All patrols, there's a fuel theft in progress at

the service station just off junction 7 on the Walsall Road. The

garage appears shut. As we pulled onto forecourt, still a chap on top

of tanker, he was filling up petrol tanker from fuel he was stealing

from underground tanks. As we pulled in, he saw us, decided to do

a runner. So he literally leapt off the top of the tanker and then was

on his toes running down A34 As the officers chase him down the

road, the diesel starts to pour out of the tanker, dangerously close to

a live generator. Never seen anything like it in my life, diesel

running down the dual carriageway, down the A34. I'm not talking about

a small amount of diesel, I'm talking, it looked like a water

main had burst. As we got close to the petrol station, you could see

it gushing out of the top of the tanker, running all down the side

of it. It was running onto the generator which was obviously hot.

Thick, acrid smoke now fills the forecourt. By the time the officers

return with one of the fuel thieves, the situation is threatening to get

out of control. When we were stood there with this diesel flowing out,

not really knowing what to do, he was the one that volunteered to go

into the smoke and diesel and shut this thing down that was pumping

out. In just six months, the White Tanker Gang sucked up a quarter of

a million pounds' worth of fuel from dozens of petrol stations

across the country. The ringleader, Rupert Camack. His two sidekicks -

Colin Danby and Brendan Henry. Between them, the three received

almost nine years in prison following a multi-force operation

led by West Midlands CID. They knew what they were doing, they knew the

petrol station they were going to have to target to get the value and

volume of commodity of the diesel that they got. It was all planned.

They would know when the deliveries were coming in. There is certain

evidence to suggest they were fully aware of when deliveries were

coming in - by six or seven o'clock in the morning. The tank that had

been filled a number of hours earlier was totally empty. You are

looking at the theft of something that is needed by the majority of

the population. When somebody finds an opening in the market, it

doesn't take long for other people to get involved and realise what is

going on, and I think we'll be In January, the cost of fuel is set

to rise by around 4p a litre. For us ordinary motorists, every

increase is another dent in the wallet. But for the criminals,

every price hike at the pump represents an opportunity for them

to maximise their illegal profits. Remember our first huckster site in

Belfast? Two weeks after we secretly filmed there, it was

targeted by Customs. The fuel they were selling was illegal. The site