MEDLEY, Fla. (WSVN) – Authorities have arrested nearly a dozen people after a county-wide gas theft bust in Miami-Dade.
The multi-agency operation dubbed “Operation Fill ‘Er Up” kicked off Wednesday morning and saw the arrests of at least 13 people and seizure of 11 vehicles. Two of the bust locations were in Medley.
Ten of the vehicles seized contained fuel bladders, which are filled with large quantities of fuel purchased with stolen credit cards. The fuel is often off-loaded at another location and then resold.
“It’s a hundred-percent gain for these individuals that are driving these trucks and stealing credits cards, and a hundred-percent profit to the sites that are selling the gas secondary,” said Miami-Dade Police Detective Argemis Colome. “The only person that gets affected here is the persons whose credit cards and ID were stolen, the credit card companies and fuel stations.”
Officials said the crooks were clever in hiding their operation.
“Trees on top of them making it seem like a landscaping company, some of them have very dark tinted windows, some of them put tires and rugs,” Colome said.
The rigged vehicles would move into yards like the one on Northwest 154th Street, near Okeechobee Road, where customers would then come fill up for cheap.
“They know this is illegal, they’re showing up there illegally purchasing the gas,” Colome said.
Authorities want the public to know these vehicles may look normal, but they could become rolling bombs if they were ever involved in a crash.
“Very, very dangerous for anybody that’s around these vehicles in the streets,” Colome said.
Medley Police, Miami-Dade Police and the Secret Service were all involved in the raid.
This is the second bust of its kind this year.
“We foresee a lot more in the future,” Colome said.
Sixty-six credit cards were also seized in the raid.
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